Andrew Hook — новинки

Candescent Blooms is a collection of twelve short stories which form fictionalised biographies of mostly Golden Era Hollywood actors who suffered untimely deaths. From Olive Thomas in 1920 through to Grace Kelly in 1982, these pieces utilise facts, fiction, gossip, movies and unreliable memories to examine the life of each individual character set against a Hollywood background of hope and corruption, opportunity and reality.

★★★★★ Hollywood’s famous corpses speak: Andrew Hook’s book is a gothic treat. I only wish he’d investigated and imagined the fast exit of Mike Todd, one of Elizabeth Taylor’s husbands, whose private plane blew up over New Mexico; or the drowning – homicide or otherwise – of Natalie Wood; or the fate of Gig Young, who shot his wife and then himself in Manhattan. Perhaps there will be a sequel, or a continuation. In particular, I much admired the heightened poetic style, which wholly fits the subject-matter. We are told about “Benny Goodman’s treacle-swing”; there are Chandleresque phrases such as someone or other emitting “a soft bubble of hostility”; and Hook is capable of epigrams worthy of Marlowe’s Dr Faustus, eg, “Guilt would be bearable, but innocence corrupts the soul.” Marvellous.’ —Roger Lewis, The Telegraph

The secret history of Ponthe Oldenguine's lost BBC programs and cake stomping for dessert. Ponthe Oldenguine is one part fictional biography of a former television impresario who claims he's been hounded out of media history, and one part biography of the journalist commissioned to write his story. Where the tales merge, there is madness.

If you want a picture of the future, Trunka, imagine a boot stamping on a cake forever. Imagine just how glorious that would be.

Comic, curious, sometimes downright outrageous, Ponthe Oldenguine is a short novel in the style of slipstream, a brain-trip through the forgotten archives of the BBC: Captain Crowface, Radio Cardboard Fox, and The Town of Theberton are but a few of the seminal programs once confined to the rubbish bin and now exhumed for your reading pleasure. Part 1984, part Python, part slipstream, part realism, the life of Ponthe Oldenguine is an audacious attempt to restore the balance between sanity and insanity; illustrating what a thin line that can be. So, place your snout in the air, your hands on your tummy, and dance. But read it and believe it at your peril.

A fantastic collection of short stories from one of Britain's highly talented new wave authors, Andrew Hook. Edgy, different, thought-provoking stories that include 'Only The Lonely' - first published in Fusing Horizons (and nominated for a British Fantasy Award for 2004), as well unpublished stories such as 'Kiosk B,' and 'The Luxury of Sleep.' Andrew's first collection - The Virtual Menagerie - was shortlisted for the best collection 2003 British Fantasy Awards.

In this collection of 19 surreal stories Andrew Hook rides the slipstream through a series of fantastic yet familiar scenarios which, despite their peculiarities, are often only one step removed from reality. Weaving life into death and death into life he skates the twilight zone of our imaginations. His skewed images are both disturbing and vibrant: a daffodil is inserted into an open wound, a giant beaver rampages through a small town, a boy's coming of age is reflected through schlock horror vignettes, and the planet's Eco-system is downloaded on computer disk.

In 2003 The Virtual Menagerie was short-listed for a British Fantasy Society Award for best collection, alongside works by Steven King, Ursula Le Guin, Clark Ashton Smith, and Ramsey Campbell (who claimed the award).