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Ubo is out today!

The day has come: Ubo, the latest sci-fi horror from Bram Stoker Award-winning author Steve Rasnic Tem, is out today.

A shiver-inducing story that plumbs the depths of human depravity, it’s fair to say that Ubo will leave quite the mark on you. Read on for more…

Ubo
By Steve Rasnic Tem

Daniel is trapped in Ubo. He has no idea how long he has been imprisoned there by the roaches.
Every resident has a similar memory of the journey: a dream of dry, chitinous wings crossing the moon, the gigantic insects dropping swiftly over the houses; the creatures, like a deck of baroquely ornamented cards, fanning themselves from one hidden world into the next.

And now each day they force Daniel to play a different figure from humanity’s violent history, from a frenzied Jack the Ripper to a stumbling and confused Stalin, to a self-proclaimed god executing survivors atop the ruins of the world. As skies burn and prisoners go mad, identities dissolve as the experiments evolve, and no one can foretell their mysterious end.

Ubo is out now!
Buy: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Google|iBooks|Kobo|Rebellion Store

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Tackling unpleasant subjects

Early in my writing career a former friend asked me, “why can’t you write something nice for a change?” He actually meant well, but I had a hard time answering him. Finally, I mumbled something like, “I just seem to have a talent for the unpleasant.” It wasn’t a very satisfactory answer for either of us.

It’s a bit like that old question, “Why do you write horror?” Somewhat impossible to answer, especially since many of the people asking the question already assume there must be something wrong, or broken, with anyone who feels compelled to write about terrible events.

My late wife Melanie used to say, “if something upsets me, or disturbs me, I don’t want to run away from it. I want to step closer to it, poke it, and see what all the fuss is about.”

That was one of the reasons I married her. So often, when she spoke from the heart she seemed to speak for my heart as well. We both often wrote about unpleasant things, things that we might wish no longer existed in the world. And yet there they were, and we found we couldn’t just ignore them.

Not everyone wants to read about unpleasant things. They feel that there’s enough bad stuff in real life that they’d rather not encounter it in fiction. I understand that attitude, and I respect it. But that’s not why I read. And it’s not why I write.

People who have met me are often surprised by how optimistic I am. I am passionate about life. I am passionate about my children and grandchildren. I am passionate about literature and art. Even when things go badly, and if you live long enough you discover that occasionally, inevitably, sometimes things will go very badly indeed, I understand that these events are still part of that long, convoluted, and wonderful narrative that makes up a life.

The Buddhists have a word, dukkha, which is often translated as suffering, but it’s something more complex. Dukkha refers to the experience that everything is impermanent, impossible to grasp, unknowable. It’s what creates that vague feeling of anxiety and dissatisfaction that many—if not most—people feel under the surface, most of the time. It’s like that annoying song you can’t forget, which you’d do anything to escape. The Buddhists would say don’t try to escape it—embrace it. They would have us turn toward suffering, take it in and own it, and with a new sense of wholeness discover the meaning in it, and allow it to open a new path.

My new Solaris novel Ubo is about one of my biggest fears—violence. Violence has always appalled me, with how it destroys, how it deadens both the perpetrator and the victim, how it diminishes us all. Most of the time I’d rather pretend it’s not there, but turning my back on it doesn’t make it go away. So back in my undergraduate days (a long time ago in a land far away), I started working on this novel, designed to be a meditation on violence. It took a long time to finish in part because I had no idea how to write it. You might say that it has taken most of my career to learn how to write Ubo.

The final result is a blend of science fiction and horror exploring violence and its origins. During the course of this novel I inhabit the viewpoints of some of history’s most violent figures: Jack the Ripper, Josef Stalin, and Heinrich Himmler among others. I wanted a range of points of view through which I could examine violence. I’m not a genius—I didn’t expect to arrive at some magical solution for humanity’s propensity towards violence. At best I hoped to make people think by means of a fascinating, somewhat twisted story. For a writer of fiction that is more than sufficient.

One of the challenges of writing a story about unpleasant things is that you want readers to read all the way to the end. Completely blow them up in one chapter and they’re unlikely to want to read the next. You have to pace things properly. You have to learn how much to reveal and how much to conceal and when. You have to give them reasons to keep reading.

Melanie and I always read each other’s work before sending it out into the world. Yet I hesitated to give her Ubo because her sensitivity to violence was even greater than mine, and she had a particular aversion to writings about Nazis and the Holocaust. With immigrant Jewish grandparents that landscape formed the background of her worst childhood nightmares (and of course that content is covered in Ubo, for what would a meditation on violence be without it?). But she insisted on reading it, and we quickly realized that if I could make Ubo work for her, then that would bode well for the readership at large.

So I owe much of the final form of this novel to Melanie’s suggestions. Some chapters are very close to their initial drafts from the mid-1970s. Others have been thoroughly rewritten a dozen times or more. Nothing happens in this novel in the exact order I thought it would. It’s been quite a ride, and just one small revelation—if you find hope near the end of your journey through Ubo, it is neither delusion or accident.

My wife Melanie passed away in February of 2015. Ubo is the last work of mine she read. It was her favorite of my novels. The book is dedicated to her.

Ubo is available for preorder now
Preorder: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Google|iBooks|Kobo

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UBO available for pre-order now!

The mighty Steve Rasnic Tem returns to Solaris in 2017 with UBO, and we’re both scared and exited. 

The Bram Stoker Award-winning Tem had written a sci-fi horror that is as chilling as it is thought provoking, an examination of violence and humanity that will leave you thoroughly chilled. And it’s available for pre-order from today! Hooray!

But what’s it all about? Read on for more…

UBO

Daniel is trapped in Ubo. He has no idea how long he has been imprisoned there by the roaches.

Every resident has a similar memory of the journey: a dream of dry, chitinous wings crossing the moon, the gigantic insects dropping swiftly over the houses; the creatures, like a deck of baroquely ornamented cards, fanning themselves from one hidden world into the next.

And now each day they force Daniel to play a different figure from humanity’s violent history, from a frenzied Jack the Ripper to a stumbling and confused Stalin, to a self-proclaimed god executing survivors atop the ruins of the world. As skies burn and prisoners go mad, identities dissolve as the experiments evolve, and no one can foretell their mysterious end.

UBO is available for pre-order now!
Buy: UK|US

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The Rebellion Advent Calendar Day Eleven: Blood Kin on sale now!

In today’s Advent offer, we’re giving you the chance to own a screamingly good horror novel from a Bram Stoker Award-winning author for less than a quid. Can’t say fairer than that!

Steve Rasnic Tem’s Blood Kin is available at the super-cheap price of only 99p (or 99c, if you’re on the other side of the Atlantic) over on Amazon. What are you waiting for? Make with the clicky, horror fans!

Blood Kin is now only 99p!
Buy: UK|US

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Introducing Ubo

Solaris is delighted to announce the next project from award-winning author Steve Rasnic Tem: Ubo.

 A blend of science fiction and horror, Ubo is a chilling story exploring the roots of violence and its effect on an ever shifting future. Rasnic Tem, whose previous work for Solaris includes Deadfall Hotel (2012) and the Bram Stoker Award-winning Blood Kin (2014), returns with a tale crackling with sinister energy sure to delight his fans – and win him a few more.

Solaris Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Oliver commented:

“Tem’s novels are always challenging and utterly brilliant. From the exploration of family, love and the power of story-telling in Deadfall Hotel, to the legacy of evil in the atmospheric and haunting Blood Kin; Tem’s novels are unique and a reminder of how powerful, how relevant, genre writing can be. Ubo feels particularly apt, a response to this increasingly uncertain and seemingly more violent world. Tem asks us to look at the worst elements of ourselves and examines what it is that makes us human.”

Steve Rasnic Tem commented:

“After the wonderful job Solaris did with my previous two novels I’m excited to be working with them again on Ubo. The result of years of research and contemplation. Ubo is a dark science fictional exploration of the roots of violence and its effects on an uncertain future, featuring some of history’s most horrific viewpoint characters.”

Ubo by Steve Rasnic Tem will be published by Solaris in February 2017.

Ubo
by Steve Rasnic Tem

Daniel is trapped in Ubo. He has no idea how long he has been imprisoned there by the roaches. 

Every resident has a similar memory of the journey to Ubo: a dream of dry, chitinous wings crossing the moon, the gigantic insects dropping swiftly over the houses of the neighborhood, passing through walls and windows as if by magic, or science. The creatures, like a deck of baroquely ornamented cards, fanning themselves from one hidden world into the next. 

And now each day they force Daniel to play a different figure from humanity’s violent history, from a frenzied Jack the Ripper to a stumbling and confused Stalin to a self-proclaimed god executing survivors atop the ruins of the world.

The scenarios mutate day after day in this camp somewhere beyond the rules of time. As skies burn and prisoners go mad, identities dissolve as the experiments evolve, and no one can foretell their mysterious end.

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Steve Rasnic Tem wins the Stoker Award!

Steve Rasnic Tem has won himself the prestigious Stoker Award for his superb Appalachian horror Blood Kin.

Needless to say we’re absolutely delighted for him – if a little frightened of what he’s going to come up with next. It’s no mean feat to win any award, but the 2015 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement, well, that’s got a nice ring to it hasn’t it?

If you haven’t checked out Blood Kin yet, now’s the time!

Blood Kin is out now!
US|UK|eBook

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Solaris acquisition announcement: UBO by Steve Rasnic Tem

Solaris Books is today delighted to share with our readers the announcement that we will be publishing horror legend Steve Rasnic Tem’s long-awaited first dark SF novel UBO in Spring 2016.

UBO is a timely and poignant look at humanity’s relationship with violence, and has been a work in progress for Tem since the early 80s. In UBO Tem combines his flair for horror with a beautifully conceptualised future world set in the prison of “Ubo,” from which the title draws its title, to create a poignantly realised and highly terrifying glimpse into the darker side of human nature.

“Every resident has a similar memory of the journey to Ubo: a dream of dry, chitinous wings crossing the moon, the gigantic insects so like roaches or cicadae dropping swiftly over the houses of the neighborhood. Dark membranes and scabrous exoskeleton pass through walls and windows in some manner magical or scientific that resembles most a deck of dusky and baroquely ornamented cards fanning themselves from one hidden world into the next.”

Now in Ubo, Daniel has no idea how long he has been imprisoned by the roaches. Each day they force him to play a different figure from humanity’s violent history, from a frenzied Jack the Ripper to a stumbling and confused Stalin to a self-proclaimed god executing survivors atop the accumulated ruins of the world. The hellish scenarios mutate day after day in this concentration camp somewhere beyond the rules of time, as skies burn and prisoners go mad, identities dissolving as the experiments evolve toward their mysterious end.

Tem describes working on UBO:

“Sometimes when you’re working on a piece you realize you’re not yet intellectually, or creatively, or emotionally equipped to do the material justice (and sometimes all three). My novel UBO, a meditation on violence, has been such a project for me. I began it in the early 80s, and showed sample chapters to a number of writers I respected. Some thought it was wonderful and showed great promise. Others thought a book about humankind’s propensity for violence was the last thing they wanted to read. For myself, I knew it was the most challenging thing I’d ever attempted. More problematic, however, was the fact that I had a 5- and an 8-year-old at home, and toiling in the land of Ubo during the day and then playing with my children and reading them bedtime stories proved to be a wrenching experience. I put the manuscript aside. Over the years I’d pick it up again, but I’d discover that either I wasn’t emotionally ready to tackle it, or I doubted my level of craft. Which brings us to today. At 64 years old I’m a little wiser perhaps; certainly I’m a lot more foolish. I’m still rather emotional, but I’ve learned that for me at least that seems to go with the job. And the book is done.”

We’re incredibly excited for the opportunity to be able to publish this amazing work, from one of our favourite authors and we hope you’re looking forward to it as much as we are.

For now we leave you with a few words from our Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Oliver on the acquisition:

“Steve is one of the most exciting and diverse voices in genre. Granted, he’s known mainly for horror, but this move into dark SF is an entirely natural progression for Steve. I’ve been enjoying his weird SF stories for years and to bring these talents to a novel is very exciting. There is no one quite like Steve Rasnic Tem.”

UBO is set to publish Spring 2016.

Steve Rasnic Tem is the author of over 400 published short stories, 6 novels, 9 collections, and is a past winner of the Bram Stoker, International Horror Guild, British Fantasy, and World Fantasy Awards.

He is the author of 2 previous novels for Solaris: Deadfall Hotel (2012) and Blood Kin (2014).

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Snake-handling preachers and cleaning house: Steve Rasnic Tem on writing ‘Blood Kin’

The dark Southern noir novel Blood Kin is out this week in the UK and Ireland (and already out in North America!). So we asked master of horror, Steve Rasnic Tem, to tell us about the research he undertook to create this dark tale of the Great Depression, snake-handling, and how his own experiences influenced his latest book…

RESEARCHING BLOOD KIN

by Steve Rasnic Tem

I think I first knew I was going to write Blood Kin around the time I understood that what I really wanted to do with my life was write fiction.

I was a senior in high school, and although I hadn’t sold anything yet I was still submitting sf stories regularly to Ted White at Amazing (which I loved for its “pulpy” feel). But the tale which had already gotten under my skin was Blood Kin (or The Kudzu Don’t Flower as I had it titled back then). I had no idea what kind of book it was going to be. I knew it wasn’t science fiction, but I understood there would be something beyond the everyday about it. I didn’t really understand or read horror. I’d read and enjoyed ghost stories, but that wasn’t horror, or at least I didn’t think so.

I had started to struggle through Faulkner for the first time. I didn’t yet “get” Faulkner, but I saw some things in his fiction which resonated with what I hoped Blood Kin would someday be.

One of the appeals of this book was that the required research seemed minimal. After all, the story took place in the general area of southwest Virginia where I’d grown up and still lived. I knew some of it would take place during the Depression, but much of what I saw around me was little changed since the Thirties.

But as I quickly learned while jotting down descriptive passages, disconnected dialog, and plot ideas into my notebook, having just the right details at hand while you’re writing is everything. It’s the difference between being in the story and writing about the story. So I started paying more attention to the local papers, clipping old-timers’ reminiscences. I did research on the clothing they wore. I read some of the books that might have been in their schools. But more importantly, I asked my mother and father for their memories, I listened to my aunts and uncles, my grandparents—all of whom were natural born storytellers. My mother and two of my aunts taught in one room schools (one of my aunts eventually wrote an essay about it). My father worked in a grist mill as a young man, and after becoming a game warden bought an old country store for some side-income. It had been in operation, with minimal changes, since the thirties. My brothers and I worked there from time to time (our first job: shoveling years of bat corpses and guano from the upstairs rooms).

In college I attended a couple of secret snake-handling services at a mountain church—they were illegal in the state of Virginia (and believe me, I sat as far away from the snakes as possible). My father, knowing I was still interested in the subjects covered in this book—although I hadn’t written anything on the story for awhile—continued to send me letters concerning his experiences in the region for many years.

And most recently, while putting in the finishing touches to the manuscript, I visited my mother in a nursing facility near my home town. Some of her reminiscences from that weekend added the final coloration to Sadie’s story.

I think it was the research, in fact, which finally drove me to complete this book. I had bins of it, you see, and a bookcase full of reference materials. I needed the space. So one afternoon I sat down with it all, a fresh outline in hand, and made piles of what “fit” that outline, and what “doesn’t fit.” From the “doesn’t fit” pile I retrieved a few precious items—letters etc.—and dumped or gave away the rest. After delivering the manuscript to Solaris I similarly eliminated the “fit” pile.

So sometimes writing a novel isn’t just about writing a novel—it’s a way of cleaning house.

Blood Kin is out now in North America in paperback and ebook, and is published this Thursday in the UK and Ireland in paperback and ebook. It will also be available direct from the Rebellion Publishing ebook store.