Hapax Legomena Archives

Join us at Dymocks Southland for the official Victorian launch of The Last Days of Kali Yuga, the latest collection from dark fiction author Paul Haines.

The Last Days of Kali Yuga collects 20 of Paul’s finest short stories, which, between them, have won some of Australia and New Zealand’s highest awards for speculative fiction. Don’t miss out on this rare opportunity to meet Paul in person, and discover for yourself why he is regarded as one of Australia’s most respected short-fiction authors.

Date: Saturday 2 July, 2011
Time: 12:00 PM
Venue: Dymocks Southland , Southland
Cost: FREE

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Her Gallant Needs (Sprawl, Twelfth Planet Press) has won the 2011 Chronos Award for Best Short Fiction, announced last night at Continuum 7, here in Melbourne.

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I am very very happy that High Tide At Hot Water Beach snared a trophy (my heart and soul is in that story completely), and very surprised (and a litte more than jubilant) that my filthy, depraved fantasy A Tale Of The Interferers: Hunger For Forbidden Flesh also picked up an SJV. Kiwis understand those boys much more than my Aussie counterparts!

I'm considering this an excellent early birthday present. I turn 41 tomorrow.

Thanks to all who nominated and voted, and an even bigger thanks to all who read the stories.

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"The writer Haines reminds me of most is M. John Harrison, whose work is similarly sardonic and sometimes vicious. A number of recurrent themes run through many of Haines’ stories, including but not limited to: the pressures and angst of urban living; sexual frustration and jealousy; and the cycle of seemingly inevitable violence. The author pulls few if any punches in his depiction of the more sordid side of life, and he keeps us close to the edge as readers. William S. Burroughs once said that ‘writing should have the immediacy and danger of bullfighting’; Paul Haines is certainly a writer whose work fits that bill." - Guy Salvidge (full review here

It should also be available on Apple, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo, Diesel, and more within the next two weeks.

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I'm pleased to announce the following stories have been shortlisted for the 2011 Sir Julius Vogel awards:

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My long overdue collection The Last Days Of Kali Yuga will be launched this year at Swancon (oh, in about a month) by Brimstone Press.

It has had a substantially revised table of contents since first announced, and as a result is a much bigger and better book than before, running in at 336 pages, in a Trade Paperback format.

The new TOC is as follows:

1	Doorways For The Dispossessed
2	Malik Rising
3	Her Collection Of Intimacy
4	The Light In Autumn's Leaves
5	The Festival of Colour
6	Burning From The Inside
7	The Punjab's Gift
8	Hamlyn
9	I've Seen The Man
10	High Tide at Hot Water Beach
11	The Last Days Of Kali Yuga
12	Taniwha, Swim With Me
13	Father Father
14	The Sky Is Turning Black
15	The Feastive Season
16	They Say It's Other People
17	Yum Cha
18	Her Gallant Needs
19	Wives
20	The Past is a Bridge Best Left Burnt

"The Past is a Bridge Best Left Burnt" is a novelette exclusive to this collection.

For those who thought that my previous collection Slice of Life was a dark and disturbing affair, this baby should put that clearly in the light of humourous black comedy. The Last Days of Kali Yuga collects my darkest and most disturbing work. There are very few laughs to be garnered within these pages. For those who love dark urban fantasy, for horror that takes you away from your traditional tropes of vampires, werewolves and ghosts, that takes you deep into the monster that is man, this one is for you.

Well, I like it anyway...

Brimstone Press have full details of all previous backorders and will be honouring them as of April 21st.

I'm pleased to announce that Her Gallant Needs (Sprawl, Twelfth Planet Press) has been nominated for the following awards:

The story also earned an Honourable Mention in Ellen Datlow's Year's Best Horror.

(I can't believe it's been SIX MONTHS since I've posted anything here. Yes, folks, I'm still alive, and sometimes only just!)

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Awards

I was lucky enough to pick up the following awards over the last week or two at WorldCon (AussieCon 4) and Au Contraire (NZ)

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I am pleased to announce that A Foreign Country: New Zealand Speculative Fiction is now available for pre-order from Random Static.

It includes my short story "High Tide At Hot Water Beach", a story heavily influenced by my recent experiences involving living/dying with cancer. It reduced my family to tears (as well as a couple of my writing inner circle) and I then forbid my wife to read it. For those familiar with my work over the last five or so years, this is not what you will be expecting.

It's also my first time in print in my homeland.

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The Sir Julius Vogel Awards, New Zealand's speculative fiction awards, have announced their shortlist for 2010.

I've been shortlisted for:

Best Collection: Slice Of Life (The Mayne Press, 2009)
Best Novella: "Wives" (X6, Coeur De Lion, 2009)
Best Short Story: "Slice of Life - A Spot of Liver" (Slice of Life, The Mayne Press, 2009)

Nice to see Simon Petrie making a lot of the categories this year too, and that Lucy Sussex has also made the shortlist.

Thanks to everyone who nominated, read, bought and helped me get there.

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I am delighted to report that my novella WIVES (X6, coeur de lion, 2009) made the Honours List of the 2009 James Tiptree Jr Award.

The James Tiptree, Jr. Award, an annual literary prize for science fiction or fantasy that expands or explores our understanding of gender. The aim of the award is not to look for work that falls into some narrow definition of political correctness, but rather to seek out work that is thought-provoking, imaginative, and perhaps even infuriating. The Tiptree Award is intended to reward those women and men who are bold enough to contemplate shifts and changes in gender roles, a fundamental aspect of any society. (From www.tiptree.org).

As a teenager, I rated James Tiptree Jr (Alice Sheldon) as one of my favourite SF short story writers, alongside Robert Silverberg, Arthur C Clarke and Asimov. I loved her work primarily because of her exploration of sexuality and gender in science fiction, which was something I rarely came across in my readings at that time.

For lists of Winners, Honours and Judges Reports.

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My novella WIVES (X6, coeur de lion, 2009) has made the shortlist for Best Long Fiction in this year's Australian Shadows Awards.

I thought I'd be in the Short Fiction section, but I'm competing with the big boys and girls. Gulp.

Full list of finalists here.

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Slice Of Life won the 2010 Chronos Award for Long Fiction. Thank you to everyone who nominated and voted. The award looks great and you can see it here.

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This is a remarkable book by a writer whose deceptively clean and easy style masks real depth, and the kind of truthfulness that makes his version of horror visceral, nasty, and yet as fearsomely compelling as the sight of a shrouded corpse beside a wrecked car on the verge of the road. This is really strong work, and if you like horror, or dark speculative fiction, you owe it to yourself to get a copy. - Dirk Flinthart www.coolshite.net

A collection that’s like nothing else out there, brimming with incident and irreverence, both as regards the idea of author as creator and the tropes of genre, absurd and yet deadly serious in some of the things it has to say. It won’t be to everyone’s taste, but if you’re of an iconoclastic bent the Paul Haines experience might be just what you’re looking for. - Pete Tennant, Black Static #15

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‘Wives’ by Paul Haines in X6 is cleverly crafted to force the reader to adjust from known parameters to the story's world, starting with a very simple image of a man in love with a girl in a country town, then, with hints and whispers, revealing that this world is not our own. The story is of a boy's coming of age as he tries desperately to assimilate his upbringing and his mother’s values - that women are not simply property - within a society where property is everything. The real danger of the Australian values of mateship and mates before dates is shown in stark reality. The dialect and language are appropriate to the scene and set the distance between today's Australia and a future where we are more isolated and "countrified". It is a story of isolationism and the ease with which those who are cut off learn hate for "the other". It comments on the brutality of mutilation and the reaction of our protagonist when he discovers he has no pity or empathy, just bitter resentment for his own loss. It is a story of despair—a mother's despair and the despair of giving up hope when love fails. This bleak story is haunting, and the ‘realness’ of this unreality is truly horrifying.

'Slice of Life—A Spot of Liver' by Paul Haines was one of the boldest entries in the horror genre for 2009 and delves into the darker side of humanity. The story of a man with a good job, a mortgage and a sound-proofed basement is well written and readable. He lives alone, indulging in the pleasures of good red wine and freshly
cooked liver. The revelation of his secret is caused by his mother coming to stay for a few days. The unfolding horrific elements have a very high ‘yuk’ factor but are unashamed and raw. Haines has a wickedly dark sense of humour and has written a story that is immediately engaging with vivid imagery and clever word play.

Slice of Life, Paul Haines (author) & Geoffrey Maloney (editor), The Mayne Press
Bleak, blackly humorous and brutally self-deprecating, this is uncomfortable yet fascinating and engaging fiction from an author whose no-holds-barred, no-prisoners-taken approach to writing is on glorious display in this collection. Juxtaposing life with air travel, psychosis and Machiavellian talking cats, this is Australian masculinity and sexuality as fiction at its most dark and disturbing. Not for the faint of heart, read a "slice" at a time.

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I'm delighted to announce that my stories "Wives" (X6, Coeur De Lion, 2009) and "Slice Of Life - A Spot Of Liver" (Slice Of Life, The Mayne Press, 2009) have tied to win Best Horror Short Story.

I think this is the first time in the history of the awards that an author has tied with themselves to win.

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Some nice words from Rjuirk Davidson, award-winning author and an associate editor at Overland:

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I'm pleased that my collection Slice Of Life has been shortlisted for the Chronos Awards for this year.

And somehow the Sean McMullen fan club has knocked my "Wives" novella out of contention for the short fiction slot! What? How could this be? My heart lies broken...

I'm surprised how thin the categories are. I had hoped a lot of people would have been nominating, but I guess not.

The full ballot here.

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Slice of Life is not for those who like pretty stories of love and derring-do. Look elsewhere for that. What it does contain is original storytelling with a strong and compelling voice that you sometimes may not want to listen to and yet you’re powerless to resist. You have been warned. - Aurealis (Full Review Here - scroll down for Slice Of Life)

Slice of Life is brilliantly nasty and engrossing. Haines may very well be the best writer of dark fiction in Australia today, and genre readers cannot afford not to pick up a copy of this collection. - HorrorScope (Full Review Here)

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"Slice of Life contains seventeen original stories by Paul Haines that travel the dark back roads of horror. We're not talking mainstream horror here, we're talking confrontational in your face stories from the perspective of every day people. If you don't trust that weird old dude over your back fence then Paul Haines' collection could just give you the reason why.
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Paul Haines has compiled a collection that is a highlight on the 2009 short story calendar. It's not for the faint of heart, there's some deeply disturbing visions going down, but is well worth reading if you appreciated decent horror of the short story form. I was pleased I finally got around to reading Mr Haines excellent collection and am left wanting more." Full Review Here.

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I'm pleased to announce that I've been nominated for:

Best Collection:
Slice Of Life (The Mayne Press, 2009)

Best Horror Short Story:
Wives (X6, Coeur De Lion, 2009)
Slice Of Life - A Spot Of Liver (Slice Of Life, The Mayne Press, 2009)

Best Anthology:
Keith Stevenson (editor) X6 (Coeur de Lion, 2009)

Well, technically X6 is Keith's baby, but I'm a brutally good part of that wonderful beast.

What is even more wonderful is that the only things I have had published this year have all been nominated.

Full Listing Here.

Congrats to all the nominees.

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I'm pleased to announce my much-nominated story "Her Collection Of Intimacy" has been selected for Australian Dark Fantasy & Horror 4 from Brimstone Press.

Also pleased to see fellow SuperNovarians Kirstyn McDermott and Miranda Siemienowicz in what is a very strong line-up.

See Horrorscope for more details on the forthcoming anthology.

Slice Of Life gets a great review over at Specusphere. Here is but a snippet:

Haines’ work is not for the faint hearted. Aficionados of all things quirky, intelligent, and dark will devour Slice of Life. It is horror, it is action, it is social commentary, it is savage fantasy and unrelenting realism, is it a psychological journey into a warped and familiar place. It is, truly, a slice of life.

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Paul Haines sliced through the Australian writing scene with his twisted and murderous black humour back in 2002, and his short horror and dark fantasy fiction has since garnered numerous awards, including the coveted Aurealis and Ditmar. Paul will be in-store this Halloween to sign copies of his collection, Slice of Life.

100% of the RRP on all copies of Slice of Life sold at this event will be donated to the Paul Haines Fund, which was set up by the local genre-writing community to assist Paul and his family in Paul’s current and ongoing battle with cancer.

Please do join us on the day to purchase a copy of Paul’s excellent collection, and in doing so support a very worthy cause.

Date: Sat 31st October (Halloween!)
Venue: Dymocks Southland
Time: 11.00am – 12.00 noon
Cost: Free
Enquiries: Phone: 03 9584 1245
Email: southland@dymocks.com.au

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The Mayne Press should have a website up and operational by the end of next week where you will be able to purchase copies of my new collection Slice of Life.

If you don't have PayPal and would like to discuss other options, please contact me here.

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X6 is out and collecting reviews.

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"Wives," Paul Haines, X6 - this one doesn't come chronologically first, but I wanted to talk about it first to get it out of the way. For me, the brilliance of Paul Haines is that he writes stories I hate, about people I hate (and I don't mean mild revulsion, I mean actual HATE), and yet I can't pull my eyes away. "Wives" is his best work to date, an utterly hideous vision of the near future, exploring issues that are already very relevant to many people - the lack of women sticking around in country Australia, the sociological effect of preferring male children to female and, oh yes, the ingrained misogyny that hovers just out of sight in our culture. Haines exposes the ugliest sides of human nature in this epic story of "Bridal Services," rape and slavery, told through the eyes of a narrator so utterly screwed up by his circumstances that it's hard to blame him for the despicable, thoughtless way that he speaks, lives and acts. This is post-apocalyptic fiction at its best and worse, because there is no apocalypse. There's just us.

(in discussion with my fellow LSSers about "Wives," I said "I don't know whether I want to nominate it for the Tiptree or BURN IT TO THE GROUND." Yeah, that. Just that.) -- Last Short Story On Earth (full review here)

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‘Wives’ by Paul Haines is set in a future, rural Australia where women are scarce and treated as commodities––an ugly, brutal tale, but undeniably compelling. -- James Francis, Reader's Feast

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It's a fucking masterpiece. --Cat Sparks

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It is a masterpiece. -- Adam Browne

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This weekend I launch my second short story collection Slice Of Life at Conflux 09 in Canberra. It's on Sunday at 5:30 if you're in town and want to come along. Follow the links for more information on the collection and the convention.

This book has been a labour of love. Geoff Maloney, as editor, and Stuart Mayne, as publisher, have put together a great collection, focusing not so much on the dark side, but the twisted and crazy world we live in that has flavoured a lot of my work over the last five years. You'll probably still shudder at times, as you indeed should, but the collection is served with a thick sauce of black humour and if you're not laughing at some stage then you're probably dead. Or wondering just what the hell is wrong with the guy who wrote it.

Slice Of Life was originally due to come out with the other fundraising activities the Australian Speculative Fiction community organised to keep me alive about a year ago, but due to a number of reasons (ill health and deaths in the family to be more precise) we have only managed to make it available now. All proceeds from the sale of this book go directly towards my funds for fighting cancer.

More information on how to buy a copy will follow on my return from the convention.

It could be one of those Last Chance To See books, seriously. So you all better buy a copy and get me to sign it, because it will be worth a fortune once I'm gone. Well, maybe worth 2 or 3 times the asking price, but in this day and age that's a lot better than any returns on superannuation.

And just so you know, the guy on the cover is eating his liver. Black enough for you?

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X6 is now available for sale on the coeur de lion website

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And don't forget to come to the official launch on Thursday 12th November - 7pm for a 7.30 start at Berkelouw Books, 70 Norton Street Leichhardt, Sydney.

X6 will be launched by Richard Harland (Worldshaker, Allen and Unwin) and ALL the X6 authors will be in attendance.

The anthology includes my 40,000 word novella Wives, a love story set in an alternate-history, near-future Australia where it's hard to find a good woman. It's a masterpiece of self-loathing, lust and tortured male angst.

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My new collection Slice of Life will be launched at Conflux this year. If my health permits, I hope to be there to help launch it.

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I was recently contacted by one of the Victorian universities who are revising their reading syllabus in a unit called 'Gender and Genre in Short Fiction' and were keen to get local writers on the reading list.

So, with a little trepidation (you all know what I write, right?), I sent off several of my stories that heavily involve sex (no, not all of them do),and, um, hoped for the best.

I got a reply today saying they'd like to recommend a couple of them for the syllabus. I'm chuffed! The stories are:

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I'm pleased to announce my short story "Her Collection Of Intimacy" (Black Magazine #2) has been shortlisted for the 2009 Chronos Awards for Best Short Story.

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I'm pleased to announce my short story "Her Collection Of Intimacy" (Black Magazine #2) has been shortlisted for the 2009 Ditmar for Best Short Story.

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This is the wonderful beast that will be carrying my near-future, alternate-history Australian love story Wives.

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My story "A Tale Of The Interferers: Necromancing The Bones" has been nominated for the 2008 Sir Julius Vogel Awards (the New Zealand science fiction awards) in the category of Best Novella/Novelette.

Published in Dark Animus 10/11 originally slated for December 2007 but not seeing the print of day until June 2008, I was VERY surprised and extremely happy that this twisted piece of my psyche has received more notice than it did on publication. And it should! It's dark, twisted and very funny. Uh, well, at least I think it's funny... more info on the story here.

I haven't yet seen who and what else is nominated in this year's awards. Hopefully their website will be updated soon.

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The winner of the 2008 Australian Shadows Award will be announced on 13 March 2009.

For more information about the Australian Shadows Award, please visit the AHWA website.

I'm very happy to have made the cut, especially with that story. Okay, Lee, the gloves are coming off for the next couple of weeks...

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Over at Horrorscope there is a review of Australian Dark Fiction for 2008. Nice to see two of my stories making the list of recommended reading:

Also great to see several SuperNOVArians (Matt Chrulew, Brendan Duffy, Andrew Macrae, Kirstyn McDermott - who also won the this year's Aurealis Award for Best Horror Short Story for her wonderful "Painlessness" - and Miranda Siemienowicz) also get mentions for their short fiction.

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My Wives novella, sitting at a pretty 26,000 words, sits on my desktop awaiting my fingers. I've got three weeks to hammer out the remaining 10,000 words needed to complete this darkest of tales.X6 dictator, Keith Stevenson, has kindly given me more time than Cat Sparks to finish my great Australian novella (oh, and it is, folks! it is!).

On other writing news, I've secured the cover image for my Slice Of Life collection due out early next year (Feb/Mar 2009). Design of course to follow. I love this piece of art -- it encapsulates perfectly the state of the protagonist in the Slice of Life titled stories, and even better that it is his liver he is cutting out and eating. Nothing like blurring the reality between the fictional and delusional Haines.

And the TOC for The Last Days of Kali Yuga is almost finalised, with very little cross-over between the two new collections.

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Coeur de lion is proud to announce its sister podcast site www.tisf.com.au. Terra Incognita Australian Speculative Fiction podcast is a monthly podcast featuring the best Australian speculative fiction read by the authors who created it. Each show is podcast no later than the 15th of the month.

The first edition features Paul Haines’ 2007 Ditmar winning novella, ‘The Devil in Mr Pussy’. Next month’s podcast will feature Adam Browne, Cat Sparks will read for the January podcast and Rob Hood for February.

You can listen online or download it direct to your itunes library (assuming you have itunes) by clicking here.

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The AHWA is extremely proud to present the inaugural issue of Midnight Echo: The Magazine of the Australian Horror Writers Association. You can get it here.

It includes a good number of SuperNOVArians: Matthew Chrulew, Brendan Duffy, Andrew Macrae and Natalie Potts, as well as some of the usual suspects of the Australian Horror scene including: Deb Biancotti, Stephan Dedman and Martin Livings.

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The most wonderful Cat Sparks sent me some copies of Scary Food and I have to say the book looks fabulous. It has the feel of one of those Ripley's Believe It or Not or a turn-of-the-century Coles Funny Facts book and is nice and weird to boot.

Thanks to all the contributors (it's a top heavy Aussie horror banquet here too) and to Sparky and Rob Zombie Hood for putting this together.

It may be the smallest Agog! Press title out there, but by God, it's the best looking.

If you're interested, you can buy a copy of this limited print run here.

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The latest issue contains an interview, a story (a teaser from the upcoming Macabre anthology) and some advertising for a writer called Paul Haines.

And there's a whole lot of stuff about the Dark Side in Australian culture too. I hope that both me and this magazine stick around for years to come.

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A Black Box arrived in my letterbox last week.

It looks great onscreen, the stories are pretty good so far (only a dozen or so read). With flash fiction like this it is hard not to rush the read, which you really shouldn't do because every word is doing something and it can be easy to miss the real twist. The only real criticism is that some of the artwork can give away the punchline (Mark Deniz's story is a good example). The perfect thing to take to work and load up while you can't be fucked working. Or eating your lunch to.

I haven't got to the music yet, but there's some good artwork lurking in this box.

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My article on bowel cancer "Trouble Down Below" has been published in the September 2008 issue of Australian Men's Health.

Although not my original title and not quite as colourful as I had intended (ie you probably won't laugh or go ugh as much) the editors have done a great job of making my non-standard article fit their magazine.

(Oh yeah, woe betide, the difference in per word pay rates between the fiction and non-fiction worlds is staggering).

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The latest issue of Dark Animus

is finally available in print. It is the best looking and most professional edition yet and weighs in at the size of most Australian anthologies. It contains work by Richard Harland, Cat Sparks, and best of all, has published the first of my Interferer tales. James Cain has always taken risks with my stories, Doof Doof Doof being the previous example of a story publishers didn't want to touch, though James took it with relish and it received an Aurealis Award nomination for Best Horror Short Story that year. The Interferers story, Necromancing The Bones is little more extreme than that, originally workshopped at Clarion South to great distaste, then reworked and doubled in length to a small novella. One colleague suggested if I were going to continue to write such filth then I do it under a pseudonym to protect my career and good name. I didn't.

The cover

of the latest issue is from a scene in the story, though I don't think Herve, the artist, quite got what my characters were all about, depicting a more Robert E Howard version of one of my boys, rather than the distinctly Haines creature that he is. Dion Hammil, however, nails The Interferers with his internal illustration.

Horrorscope

has reviewed the magazine favourably. The Interferers garnered this:

A very amusing and ribald tale poking serious fun at D&D gamers and the stories they create. It seems the adventurers in this world live interconnected lives, with “the good” guys very much in league with the perceived “bad” guys, in an eternal cycle of swindling the common folk out of their money. Filled with acts of bestiality, brotherly love, and profanity, it is a very funny romp through the product of some very twisted gamers’ imaginations.

A previous rejection for the story stated that the magic system wasn't original enough and was too reminiscent of D&D, which was exactly my point. Why does every fucking fantasy trilogy/novel try to create its own magic system? Enough is enough! It should be part of the Turkey City Lexicon. We don't bother to describe how a dragon can exist in a fantasy novel anymore, do we, people? No.

This story, as all Interferer stories are, is dedicated to Mike Dowman, long time friend and travelling buddy, on whom the disgraced knight Scwythe is based.