The collection showcases Joel Lane's acclaimed stories, celebrated by notable figures in weird fiction. His work, frequently featured in prestigious annual anthologies, delves deeply into the complexities of the human condition, offering readers an unflinching look at life's darker aspects. This posthumous compilation highlights Lane's unique voice and mastery in storytelling, ensuring his legacy continues to resonate with fans of the genre.
Featuring twenty-two stories, this collection showcases the haunting and impactful storytelling of Joel Lane, a prominent figure in slipstream and horror fiction. Set primarily in Birmingham, the narratives blend urban fantasy with deep emotional resonance, leaving a lasting impression on readers. Additionally, the book includes a significant essay by Nina Allan that delves into Lane's 'Blue' trilogy, providing further insight into his work and themes.
First published in 2012, Joel Lane's World Fantasy Award-winning collection is a true modern classic of weird fiction that cemented his place as one of the most important and distinctive British writers of the weird. WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY R.M. FRANCIS
Trouble in the Heartland, Joel Lane's second poetry collection, inhabits the same West Midlands landscape as his first collection, The Edge of the Screen (Arc, 1999) - a landscape of urban decay, violence, loneliness, abuse, addiction and chaos. Chaos is a particularly prominent theme in this book; in the first section, the chaos is around us, in the second, inside us, while the third and final section attempts to draw the outer and inner worlds together in order to make sense of the whole. For all its unrelenting subject matter, this is a surprisingly optimistic book - carefully observed, sensitive and grimly witty - and one that will confirm Joel Lane's considerable talents as a poet.
First published in the USA in 2006, and long out-of-print, The Lost District has never been published in the UK until now, further enforcing Joel Lane's reputation as one of the most significant and distinctive British writers of the weird.
Joel Lane, renowned as a writer of compelling strange stories, novels in the noir tradition, and acute poetry, was also a thoughtful and perceptive essayist on the fantasy and horror fields. For the journal Wormwood he wrote a series of pieces discussing the leading figures in twentieth-century dark literature, including H.P. Lovecraft, Thomas Ligotti, Fritz Leiber and Robert Aickman. They are characterised by his profound insight, high critical standards and his keen allegiance to this fiction. Joel always intended to collect these essays in a book to be entitled This Spectacular Darkness, a quotation from the poet Edwin Morgan, whose work he admired. This cannot be that book: but it brings together all the essays he was able to write in the series. Joel writes in his essay,
First published in 2003 and long out-of-print, The Blue Mask is a hardcore emotional trip exploring the trauma of change and the nature of violence and of love.
Scar City is one of the final collections put together before Joel Lane's death in 2013 - with his home city of Birmingham as their nucleus, these are intense, haunting and often painful stories from a master of the short form. WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY NICHOLAS ROYLE
Joel Lane's The Earth Wire was first published in 1994 by Egerton Press and is reissued in paperback by Influx Press for the first time in over twenty-five years. With a new introduction by Nina Allan.
First published in 2000, Joel Lane's debut novel From Blue to Black is a story of passion, blood and alcohol, broken strings and broken lives - a piercing voyage through our musical and political past that cuts to the bone.