Thursday 11 December 2008

Myths and Mobsters


I’m getting this announcement in before my co-editor lets the cat out of the bag over at Book Smugglers. Yup, I said co-editor. That’d be Mike Stone. And we’d be editing a collection of short stories. Crime fiction stories, as if you had to ask.

A while ago, I was contacted by Mark Deniz, who runs the ever-growing small press Morrigan Books. He’d read some of my work and enjoyed what was happening here at CSNI. He also happened to know that Mike Stone is a good friend of mine, and as he’d wanted to work with Mike on a project for quite a while, he figured I might be able to persuade him onto this one.

Morrigan Books aims to put out the very best in dark genre fiction, and who does dark crime fiction better than the Irish? Nobody, in my opinion. And luckily, Mark was willing to accept this opinion. It left one small problem, though. How to set this collection apart from Ken Bruen’s excellent Dublin Noir and Colin Bateman’s forthcoming Belfast Nights? Well, it’s Morrigan Books, right? Morrigan is the Celtic goddess of war. Why not ask for stories with an Irish mythology theme? Why not, indeed?

We asked a bunch of writers and they all seemed intrigued. We’ve even received a number of stories already. Ken Bruen, Adrian McKinty, Garbhan Downey, Sam Millar and Tony Bailie have each sent us something. And I know Paul Charles has completed a first draft of his contribution and that Neville Thompson is working on his. We’ve also received positive interest from Brian McGilloway, Stuart Neville, Arlene Hunt, Aifric Campbell, Lucy Caldwell, Ian McDonald and John McAllister. Me and Mike might even write something, but next to the talent we’ve attracted, we’d need to write something special to justify a place amongst it.

So, what do you think?

And if the whimsy takes you, could you suggest a title? Me and Mike are stumped. At the moment, Stuart Neville’s suggestion is in the lead; Myths and Mobsters (which I've swiped for the title of this post). Mike’s decided to run a draw in which you can win a paperback copy of his novella collection, Fourtold. Each suggestion will be entered into it and the winner picked at random. I’ll sweeten the deal by adding a crime fiction book from my collection. I’ll give the winner a choice of books after the draw. Leave your answer here, or over at Mike’s Book Smugglers piece. It should go live in about four hours.

UPDATE -- Mike's Book Smugglers article can be found right here.

15 comments:

Michael Stone said...

We are taking over the world, one URL at a time!

Ana said...

Hey there Gerard (and hi, Mike!), the post is scheduled to go up at 2:30pm GMT.

Cheers!

Gerard Brennan said...

Mike - That operation is supposed to be covert!

Ana - Thanks for stopping by. I'll be sure to update the post with a link at half two.

Cheers

gb

Declan Burke said...

How about "McCool" for a title?

Or "McCool and the Gangs"?

Or "McCool Runnings"?

Or "The Big McCoolowski"?

Or "The Bloody Red Hand"?

Sorry, too much caffeine ...

Peter Rozovsky said...

"Brother, Can You Spare a Finn"?
===================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/

Peter Rozovsky said...

Sounds like an exciting and original idea, and I'll try to come up with a real suggestion for a title. Congratulations and good luck.
===================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/

col2910 said...

A Crock of Celtic Crime

Gerard Brennan said...

Dec - thanks for the caffeine-fuelled enthusiasm. I should probably warn you that you'll only be entered into the draw once though.

Peter - Thanks for the support, as always, sir.

Colman - I read A Crock... and thought, I'm gonna slap him this time, but you pulled it back.

Cheers

gb

Unknown said...

"One bed of wounds"

Anonymous said...

Eating away the salmon of knowledge.

Because the salmon of knowledge is the best concept in any mythology EVAR!
Already the great Douglas Adams wanted to use it as a title...

Gerard Brennan said...

Justin - Thanks for stopping by. Love those OOTG covers.

Marco - The Salmon of Knowledge is indeed a good one. Brian McGilloway is writing a story based on that one. You can bet it'll be brilliant.

Cheers

gb

Vanda Symon said...

You could go for Myth and Mortality.

Or if you wanted to be funny and feign a lisp, you could call them Mythteries.

Peter R sent me here. He's nice like that.

Peter Rozovsky said...

I blush at Vanda's compliment.

How about Gangsters' Causeway? That's allusive to Irish mythology and to the country's most famous geographical wonder, and it sounds vaguely menacing.
==============
Detectives Beyond Borders
“Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home”
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/

Tony Bailie said...

1. The Book of Evasions
2. Trouble with a Capital T
3. Short Stories Tall Tales

did I mention that I was a Horslips fan

Gerard Brennan said...

Vanda - Thanks for throwing in your tuppence. Hope you call by again. Mythteries... heh.

Peter - Thanks for spreading the word. Gangster's Causeway... I like that.

Tony - Nice suggestions, ye mad Irish rocker. And all much better than The Unfortunate Cup of Tea. Maybe we should do a suggest-a-soundtrack competition next.

gb