Immagine dell'autore.

Alan Baxter (1) (1970–)

Autore di The Roo

Per altri autori con il nome Alan Baxter, vedi la pagina di disambiguazione.

34+ opere 340 membri 26 recensioni 1 preferito

Sull'Autore

Alan Baxter was born on April 18, 1970 in Sussex, United Kingdom. He is an author of dark fantasy, science fiction and horror. He also runs dark fiction publisher Blade Red Press and is a martial artist and Personal Trainer. His first novel, a dark fantasy/horror thriller called RealmShift (The mostra altro Balance Book 1), was self-published in 2006. Baxter set up independent publisher Blade Red Press in 2008 and re-released RealmShift along with the sequel, MageSign (The Balance Book 2). He is the author of the dark urban fantasy trilogy, Bound, Obsidian and Abduction (The Alex Caine Series). (Bowker Author Biography) mostra meno

Serie

Opere di Alan Baxter

The Roo (2020) 39 copie
Bound (2014) 36 copie
RealmShift (2006) 33 copie
Sallow Bend (2022) 23 copie
Primordial (2017) 22 copie
MageSign (2008) 16 copie
Hidden City (2018) 16 copie
Abduction (2014) 15 copie
Crow Shine (2016) 15 copie
Obsidian (2014) 15 copie
Devouring Dark (2018) 11 copie
Write The Fight Right (2011) 10 copie
The Book Club (2017) 9 copie
Served Cold (2019) 6 copie

Opere correlate

Suspended In Dusk (2014) — Collaboratore — 19 copie
Hope (2011) — Collaboratore — 16 copie
Dreaming of Djinn (2019) — Collaboratore — 14 copie
Bloodlines (2015) — Collaboratore — 12 copie
Night-Mantled: The Best of Wily Writers, Volume 1 (2011) — Collaboratore — 12 copie
Dead Red Heart (2011) — Collaboratore — 11 copie
Love, Death + Robots: The Official Anthology, Volume 2+3 (2022) — Collaboratore — 11 copie
Dreaming in the Dark (2016) — Collaboratore — 10 copie
Postscripts Magazine, Issue 32/33: Far Voyager (2014) — Collaboratore — 10 copie
The Year's Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2010 (2011) — Collaboratore — 10 copie
The Year's Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2014 (2015) — Collaboratore — 10 copie
SNAFU: Survival of the Fittest (2015) — Collaboratore — 9 copie
The Year's Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2015 (2017) — Collaboratore — 9 copie
The Year's Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2012 (2013) — Collaboratore — 7 copie
Bloodstones (2012) — Collaboratore — 6 copie
Insert Title Here (2015) — Collaboratore — 6 copie
Damnation and Dames (2012) — Collaboratore — 5 copie
Halldark Holidays (2020) — Collaboratore — 5 copie
In Your Face (2016) — Collaboratore — 5 copie
Cthulhu Deep Down Under Volume 3 (2021) — Collaboratore — 4 copie
Te kōrero ahi kā = To speak of the home fires burning (2018) — Collaboratore — 3 copie
Suspended in Dusk II (2018) — Collaboratore — 3 copie
Winds of Change (2011) — Collaboratore — 3 copie
Next (2013) — Collaboratore — 2 copie
Grimdark Magazine Issue #19 (2019) — Collaboratore — 2 copie
Beneath Ceaseless Skies Issue #133 — Collaboratore — 1 copia
Focus 2014 : highlights of Australian short fiction (2015) — Collaboratore — 1 copia

Etichette

Informazioni generali

Nome canonico
Baxter, Alan
Data di nascita
1970-04-18
Sesso
male
Nazionalità
UK
Australia
Luogo di nascita
Sussex, England, UK
Luogo di residenza
Jamberoo, Illawarra, Australia
Attività lavorative
author
martial arts instructor

Utenti

Recensioni

A short romp through a B-rate Sci-fi flick. My favorite. A deadly kangaroo terrorizes a small town.
 
Segnalato
autumnesf | 5 altre recensioni | Jan 1, 2023 |
DNF at 18%.

The first story, which is as far as I got, is very well written. But, when it didn't resolve so much as set up the town's character, I read enough reviews to understand that I should have read reviews before buying this series of stories, even on sale. Horror is not my favorite genre, so I want resolutions. I didn't get one, and apparently endings aren't the point. My bad.
 
Segnalato
terriaminute | 3 altre recensioni | Dec 4, 2022 |
Tricia is still grieving the loss of her son Toby. She tries to hold out hope that he is alive and will be found someday but he's been missing for a year and it's just not looking good. Her marriage has also taken a hit since her husband's drinking has spiraled out of control ever since their son disappeared. Now two young girls have gone missing and Tricia wants to help with the search. Some of the locals suspect the carny folk while others are suspicious of Caleb, the school janitor who can never look anyone in the eye for long. Tricia and Caleb team up in the search but what they discover goes far beyond their wildest fears.

The girls are found alive, but only Caleb realizes that something is horribly wrong. They were searching for two girls so why have they come back with three? Who or what is this stranger? And why does the entire town think they've known her all her life?

The three girls are now inseparable, and unnatural deaths seem to follow everywhere they go.


I loved this book so much! There is an old superstitious saying when you get a weird unexplained chill, that it's because a goose just walked over your grave. This book gave me chills so many times that the entire gaggle of geese must have walked over mine.

Sallow Bend was a pleasantly creepy surprise for me. It has pretty much everything my heart desires in a horror novel. There's a small town with a dark past, lots of secrets, the carnival rolling in at the perfect moment to get blamed for some disappearances, and a whole lot of supernatural goings-on.


My thanks to Cemetery Dance Publications for the digital copy.
… (altro)
 
Segnalato
IreneCole | Jul 27, 2022 |
Stories’ collections can be a little tricky, sometimes, because not all of the offerings might encounter the reader’s tastes, but The Gulp did not suffer from this problem for two important reasons: the five short stories in this anthology revolve around a common element - the Australian city of Gulpepper - and the weird horror theme that permeates the collection, whose almost-Lovecraftian feel makes for a delightfully uneasy read.

Gulpepper is a pleasant seaside city on the Australian coast, but while it might be nice to pass through it, staying there carries a good number of problems: the inhabitants look friendly enough on the surface, but on closer inspection there is something… not right about them, something the casual visitors cannot put their finger on, but still proves unsettling. The townspeople refer to the city as ‘the Gulp’, often mentioning that it has the tendency to “swallow” people, almost a warning about moving on as quickly as one can…

Unfortunately, not everyone heeds that warning, as it happens to Rich in Out of a Rim: he’s training to become a delivery van driver, and when a mechanical problem forces him and his instructor George to stay overnight in Gulpepper, Rich labels George’s warnings as an old man’s fancy - or even an attempt at hazing the newbie - and so decides to have a night on the town, while George refuses to leave the safety of the truck’s cab. What Rich will experience cannot be labeled as horror with any certainty - although he finds himself facing some harrowing circumstances - but his exploration of Gulpepper and its inhabitants reveals the creepiness of the town and its people through a series of encounters that lay the tone and set the background for the rest of the book.

The second story, Mother in Bloom, deals with two siblings, Maddy and Zack, whose ailing mother just died: firmly set on not letting the authorities know of the woman’s demise, to avoid being consigned to social services, the two of them must find a way of disposing of the body, carrying on as normally as possible until Maddy will turn eighteen and be free to take care of Zack as her guardian. Having a dead body in the house would be a disturbing experience for everyone, but the changes the kids’ mother’s corpse undergoes are part of the macabre tone of the story, together with Maddy and Zack’s emotional removal from the loss, due to their mother’s character which is often described as tyrannical and spiteful. And if that’s not enough, the dreadful changes in the corpse point toward a supernatural factor that will compel the two kids (and particularly Zack) toward some truly appalling actions…

The Band Plays On sees a quartet of tourists become enthralled by a local band, Blind Eye Moon, whose performance in town encourages the four of them to stay longer than anticipated, accepting the band’s hospitality in their lavish mansion. A party fueled by alcohol and music leads to some very striking dreams that seem to hint at a dark past and whose cosmic horror quality compels one of the travelers, Patrick, to try and steer his friends away from Gulpepper and the magnetic influence of the band’s members. But it might be already too late for that, because The Gulp has a tendency to swallow the unwary, indeed. This third story marks a definite progression toward horror, with its hints at vampiric possession and Lovecraftian elements, and it definitely enhances the sense of suffocating dread at the roots of this collection.

The fourth offering, 48 to Go, starts in a very mundane way as Dace, who works as a courier for the gangster lord Carter, is robbed of his precious cargo while trying to woo a young lady. The only way to get back in Carter’s good graces is to refund the monetary loss, and to do so in the short time allotted by the boss - 48 hours - Dace sets his sights on robbing an elderly couple rumored to have huge sums of money hidden in their house. The man’s plan and preparations have something of a funny flavor, which carries on until the start of his undertaking, when the sheer number of setbacks and unexpected obstacles drives him to become much more than ruthless and callous. Here the horror is all too human, and despite the lack of supernatural elements feels even more terrifying.

Rock Fisher is the final offering in this anthology and it goes back to a supernatural theme laced with a sizable dash of body horror as expert fisherman Troy comes back home with a strange “egg” which, once set in his aquarium, starts to grow and exert a compelling attraction on him, to the exclusion of any other ties to family or friends.

The Gulp offers a very intriguing - if creepy - setting for these stories, often adding other elements that remain as background detail but hint at much more and show the reader that the well of horror remains mostly untapped here. The dichotomy between the apparently normal surface and the eerie depths of the city and its people is where the uneasiness - and then the fear - comes from, trapping the reader into a compulsive immersion in these stories and the sensation to be just as imprisoned as the hapless characters depicted there.

After discovering this author and this intriguing collection, I know I will look forward to the upcoming publication of the new collection of stories set in Gulpepper: hopefully I will be able to find my way out once more and not be swallowed by the Gulp… ;-)
… (altro)
 
Segnalato
SpaceandSorcery | 3 altre recensioni | May 3, 2022 |

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Statistiche

Opere
34
Opere correlate
29
Utenti
340
Popolarità
#70,096
Voto
3.9
Recensioni
26
ISBN
73
Lingue
1
Preferito da
1

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