Birmingham Writers’ Group

When their Martian airship is shot down by anti-colonial terrorists, Professor Sedgewick and his companion, Cadwallander, are faced with dangers on all side. Not only do they have to contend with the Indian freedom fighter, Mina Saxena, but are confronted with an ancient mystery far more insidious and deadly than the gun-toting Miss Saxena. For, beneath the desert sands of Mars, lies the court of the great god Aiwass in which his human disciples have gathered to usher in an age of horrors…

The second novelette chapbook in the Sedgewick Papers collection, The Pearl of Tharsis is a gleaming combination of planetary romance, cosmic horror and Victorian steampunk adventure.

Curious about the day that Saint Christopher found out he’d been declared non-existent by the pope? What exactly is a cat in Hell’s chance? How would an annual Christmas present exchange between Heaven and Hell work out? Find out the answers to these and other pressing questions in this collection of short stories from the world of Clovenhoof.

This contains the stories Clovenhoof’s Shed and Clovenhoof Goes To Night School, which were previously published individually, but there are eight other stories included here featuring favourite characters from Heaven and Hell.

Contains:

• Clovenhoof goes to Night School.
• Patron Saint of Nothing At All.
• Clovenhoof and the Snowmen.
• Saint Nicholas and the Krampus.
• Detritus at the Church Fete.
• Clovenhoof and the Spiders.
• A Cat in Hell’s Chance.
• The Non-Specific Prayer Assessment Unit.
• The Hoof.
• Clovenhoof’s Shed.

Your goal:

• Write a novel with one or more partners

Learn how to:

• find a writing partner
• harness the creative energy that comes with collaboration
• avoid problems in working with someone else
• write a novel that you’re both passionate about

Contains:

• suggested frameworks for organising tasks
• activities to help you generate and organise ideas
• real life anecdotes and examples

Best-selling comic fantasy authors, Heide Goody and Iain Grant, have drawn on their years of collaborative writing experience to create this guide for every collaborative writer. From finding a writing partner, to generating those important story ideas, to actually writing your novel and seeing it through to publication, this book will walk you through the pitfalls and challenges of collaborative writing.

When a distress call is received from a space station floating in the æther of outer space, Professor Sedgewick and his companion, Cadwallander, are quick to investigate. What they find aboard the transætheric space-lock is an alien perversion, intent on spreading its horrific dominion over Victorian Earth…

The first novelette chapbook in the Sedgewick Papers collection, The Angels of the Abyss is a uniquely satisfying blend of rip-roaring steampunk adventure and Lovecraftian cosmic horror.

As punishment for his part in an attempted coup in Heaven, the Archangel Michael is banished to Earth. The holiest of the angelic host has to learn to live as a mortal, not an easy job when you’ve got Satan as a next-door neighbour.

Michael soon finds that being a good person involves more than helping out at Sunday school and attending church coffee mornings. He has to find his purpose in life, deal with earthly temptations and solve a mystery involving some unusual monks and a jar of very dangerous jam.

Sequel to the best-selling Clovenhoof, Heide Goody and Iain Grant have written a wild comedy that features spear-wielding cub scouts, accidental transvestites, King Arthur, a super-intelligent sheepdog, hallucinogenic snacks, evil peacocks, old ladies with biscuits, naked paintball, stolen tractors, clairvoyant computers, the Women’s Institute, and way too much alcohol.

I take Lolly over to the Illuminated Southcotes. She places her hands on the glass cover and studies the model inside.

“This is lovely.”

“My granddad made it. My dad added to it.”

I slip a twenty pence piece in the slot. I watch Lolly as she watches the miniature people and vehicles move about the model town. Her lips twitch into fleeting smiles at each new scene.

“My dad added this last bit not long before he died,” I say. “Look. Here she comes.”

The tiny figure of a woman holding a baby, no more than half an inch high, runs down from the town, down the beach and into the sea. She doesn’t re-emerge.

John Hathaway is twenty-one years old, a delusional schizophrenic and a murderer.

And now that his father is dead, he’s the only person who knows someone or something has killed four women in the bleak seaside town of Southcotes.

Lolly Quale is drawn into John’s quest for answers, finding a distraction from her own problems through what she sees as their little make-believe mystery game.

And then a fifth body washes up on the beach…

Iain Grant’s third solo novel is a work of philosophical and storytelling trickery, which makes new use of the electronic book format to tell a story so astonishing you literally won’t know where it will take you next.

A rucksack is stolen. It is a simple and unremarkable theft but it will have far-reaching consequences for five disparate, yet equally marginalised, individuals.

The Victim – Karen is grieving over the loss of her little girl, Amy. The theft of a toy rabbit, the only keepsake Karen has of her little girl, leads her to take some drastic actions to retrieve it.

The Thief – Clarke is a failed businessman deeply in debt to the merciless loan shark Michaels and, having run out of friends to take pity on him, is facing life on the streets if he can’t change something in his own life to turn his fortunes around.

The Loan Shark’s Hired Muscle – Danny has recently served a year-long sentence for child pornography offences, and is struggling to cope with life outside. A social pariah, he seeks solace in the insular world of an on-line virtual reality game, i-Land.

The Therapist – Jane has been helping Karen through the grieving process for the last two years and is perhaps the only person who knows that the relationship Karen had with Amy was not a normal one. Jane, like Danny, spends much of her life in the virtual i-Land, an escape from the bone disease that is inexorably killing her.
The Scientist – Nadia has, with Karen’s help, been tracking the progress of a mysterious plague amongst the city’s urban fox population but finds she has more than work on her mind when MI5 agents appear on her doorstep investigating her family’s links to international terrorism.

In Other Hands is a story about people on the margins of society and the ties that bind us all together.

The Seelie Court controls an empire of a thousand suns, each world linked to the next by the black oneirium gateways of the Sacred Guild of Gatemakers. While the empire plunders the conquered worlds to stave off its own destruction, Edenist rebels fight for independence. Caught somewhere in between is Celandine Brey, orphan, apprentice gatemaker and key to a treasure of untold wealth.

Chased by imperial agents and corrupt soldiers, Celandine is aided in her quest by Mr Sukh, mute veteran of the Engine Wars, Orlando Swaan, Edenist and naïve schemer, and Ana Zanbir, a demon-hunter on the run from her husband-creator, now bound to Celandine by an unbreakable oath.

From the narcotic grasslands of Aphid to the ancient temples of Nachista, from the high-rise cityscape of Termagore to the junk world of Immonda, A Gateway Made Of Bone is a fantastic journey through the conflict and chaos of a civilisation on the verge of collapse.

Charged with gross incompetence, Satan is fired from his job as Prince of Hell and exiled to that most terrible of places: English suburbia. Forced to live as a human under the name of Jeremy Clovenhoof, the dark lord not only has to contend with the fact that no one recognises him or gives him the credit he deserves but also has to put up with the bookish wargamer next door and the voracious man-eater upstairs.

Heaven, Hell and the city of Birmingham collide in a story that features murder, heavy metal, cannibalism, armed robbers, devious old ladies, Satanists who live with their mums, gentlemen of limited stature, dead vicars, petty archangels, flamethrowers, sex dolls, a blood-soaked school assembly and way too much alcohol.

Clovenhoof is outrageous and irreverent (and laugh out loud funny!) but it is also filled with huge warmth and humanity. Written by first-time collaborators Heide Goody and Iain Grant, Clovenhoof will have you rooting for the bad guy like never before.