Nina Allan Collection

[joysilence]

I have recently discovered the small publisher of weird and slipstream fiction Eibonvale Press. I bought a couple of paperbacks from them - What The Giants Were Saying by David Rix (I'll post about him later) and Nina Allan's short story collection A Thread of Truth. I was especially keen to read the Allan book as I've been greatly tempted by samples of her work in various horror magazines and anthologies recently. Eibonvale's prices are also pretty tempting - they seem to be aiming for the impoverished student market rather than the collector of luxury first editions. This means typos and slightly amateurish (though enthusiastic and original!) jacket art, but it also means I paid less than a tenner for these books, so I can definitely put up with the lack of luxury. In any case the binding and paper are pretty solid - we're not talking Wordsworth cheap-and-nasty here. But enough about the carapace and onto the interior.

( The Truth, The Whole Truth and Nothing Oh Alright I'll Get My Coat )

This collection is a few years old now, and so doesn't contain her recent excellent story "The Lammas Worm" (which deserves to become a classic of the genre) but that one's been in several big horror anthologies recently anyway! And several stories in this early collection of Allan's work more than approach the greatness of her recent stories. Not that I've read many of the really recent ones! I really must buy more books. I don't need to eat every week surely.