Simon Bestwick – författare

Alice has returned to her old home town to put her life back in order.378 Collarmill Road looks like an ordinary house. But sometimes, the world outside the windows isn't the one you expect to see; sometimes you'll turn around and find you're not alone.An old flame of Alice's - John Revell - reluctantly comes to her aid when the house begins to reveal its secrets. The hill on which it sits is a place of legends - of Old Harry, the Beast of Crawbeck; of the Virgin of the Height and the mysterious Red Man - and home to the secrets of the shadowy Arodias Thorne.Thorne's influence seeps up through the ground, infiltrating Alice's new home, and only she and John stand between Arodias and the rest of our world.

In this "e;gripping"e; post-apocalyptic thriller, a woman driven by dark forces leads a rebellion against the dictator reigning over a post-nuclear Britain (Tim Lebbon, New York Times-bestselling author of The Silence). Haunted by the ghosts of her murdered family, Helen Damnation takes to The Black Road for revenge. As she traverses a landscape decimated by nuclear war, her resolve to take down Commander Tereus Winterborn and his brutal militia of Reapers only strengthens with every step. Along the way, Helen is reunited with her old mentor Darrow, who has formed a militia of his own from a rag-tag band of youths the most formidable of them is Danny, a fighter so green only his skill with a gun and his grit keep him alive. Helen is also reunited with her ally Alannah, an intelligence officer so traumatized during the war she is more than ready for the coming revolt. All they need now is Gevaudan Shoal, the last surviving member of the genetically engineered Grendelwolves. Once Helen and her band of rebels win Shoal to their side, they'll be a force to be reckoned with. Still, Commander Winterborn is a formidable nemesis. The only thing rivaling Winterborn's insatiable need for power is his all-too-personal vendetta against Helen. And with Dr. Mordrake working under his command on Project Tindalos, a top-secret experiment to harness of the potential of ancient technologies, Winterborn may just succeed at world domination. But Winterborn doesn't foresee the devastation Tindalos could wreak on the world once unleashed. Unless Helen and her rebel faction stop him first. "e;One of those stories that grabs you and won't let go."e; Pat Cadigan, Hugo Award winning author of Mindplayers

In this post-apocalyptic thriller, a revolt against the dictator of a post-nuclear Britain is threatened when the rebel leader is targeted by monsters. Born of the perilous experiment that was Project Tindalos, the Catchman has the relentlessness of a machine combined with the savagery of a beast. The monster's mission? To kill Helen Damnation, leader of the escalating rebellion against Commander Tereus Winterborn and his brutal militia, The Reapers. With her life in the balance, Helen faces down the ghosts of her murdered family as well as the devastating secrets of her past which threaten to destroy her resolve. But Helen has come back from the dead once before. With the help of her fiercest allies, the resistance movement she has raised, Helen will rise again . . . Praise for The Black Road series:"e;Gripping . . . with flawed and compelling characters scraping what they can from the ashes. Tim Lebbon, New York Times bestselling author of The Silence"e;Grabs you and won't let go."e; Pat Cadigan, Hugo Award winning author of Mindplayers

In this post-apocalyptic thriller, a war-ravaged female revolutionary goes up against her archnemesis in nuclear-decimated England. With the specter of her murdered family finally put to rest, and her rebel forces spread across an obliterated Britain, Helen Damnation stands on the verge of winning the war against Tereus Winterborn. But even with his ambitions threatened and the very survival of his militia of Reapers at stake, Commander Winterborn's thirst to take down Helen once and for all has not slackened. With a plan to capture Gevaudan Shoal, the fearsome genetically engineered Grendelwolf who is Helen's closet ally, Winterborn is on course to weaken the rebellion. And with Dr. Mordrake under his command creating a weapon that will ensure Winterborn's rule, the commander can practically taste victory. And when secrets about Helen threaten to tear both Gevaudan and the resistance apart, Winterborn feels certain he's about to get his dearest wish . . . Praise for The Black Road series:"e;Gripping . . . with flawed and compelling characters scraping what they can from the ashes. Tim Lebbon, New York Times bestselling author of The Silence"e;Grabs you and won't let go."e; Pat Cadigan, Hugo Award winning author of Mindplayers

The post-apocalyptic saga of a populist uprising against a dictator and his brutal cabal who unleash monsters to maintain rule of a post-nuclear England. From "e;brilliant"e; British horror author Simon Bestwick, the complete three novels in his dystopian series, The Black Road (The Guardian). Helen Damnation had been left for dead by her archnemesis, buried in a mass grave and expected never to rise again. But Helen escaped, only to be haunted by the ghosts of her murdered family, who taunt her into gathering all her strength to overthrow the terrifying reign of Tereus Winterborn and his brutal militia, The Reapers. With a band of fierce allies, including Gevaudan Shoal, the last survivor of the genetically engineered Grendelwolves and Helen's most powerful weapon, Helen takes to the Black Road in hope of victory. But at a secret site deep in the Wastelands of decimated England, Commander Winterborn has an ally of his own: the fiercely determined Dr. Mordrake, hard at work on Project Tindalos, an experiment to harness the forces of ancient ritual to create a technology so powerful, there will be no end to Winterborn's influence. But Project Tindalos is not without its own dangers. There are dark forces Winterborn could not have anticipated, or Helen and her rebel faction prepared for forces that will change the terms of the rebellion, for better or worse. Praise for The Black Road series:"e;Gripping . . . with flawed and compelling characters scraping what they can from the ashes. Tim Lebbon, New York Times bestselling author of The Silence"e;Grabs you and won't let go."e; Pat Cadigan, Hugo Award winning author of Mindplayers

Experience the dark, atmospheric tales of "e;one of the most accomplished and eloquent British horror writers"e; in his first collection (Ramsey Campbell). In A Hazy Shade of Winter, Simon Bestwick delivers stories that reveal the darkness of a Christmas Day, revive a blood-soaked Halloween, and drench you in the sweat-inducing terror of a hot summer's day. No season is off limits as he drapes the past, present, and future in familiar themes, easily twisted to reveal an underside and otherworld that expose humanity's bleakest instincts. Bestwick's supernatural horror gems include the title tale in which a man spends the holidays with his new girlfriend's parents, only to discover an insidious evil in their midst. In "e;Love Knot,"e; a friend's suicide by hanging ropes a man and a bevy of missing women into the blackest magic. The tables are turned on a toxic boss who is continually harassed by threatening letters from an unused computer on an empty desk in "e;Severance."e; While "e;Until My Darkness Goes"e; follows an avid reader who finds nasty comments scribbled in the margins of a used book a dead man's spite that bleeds into his life with far-reaching consequences. Fourteen stories in all comprise "e;a strong and engaging collection of tales that engage the supernatural but are ultimately about human fears, hopes, and courage"e; (The Harrow). Praise for the writing of Simon Bestwick"e;Bestwick is brilliant."e; -The Guardian"e;Simon Bestwick's stories are sharp, bleak, odd, full of grief and grace . . . In a genre full of unsung treasures, his song deserves to be heard."e; -Gemma Files, author of Experimental Film