Votive Offerings

Mark Valentine
John Howard
Peter Bell
Colin Insole
Sarob Press

Four ‘all new’ long stories (or novelettes) imbued with the mystery and otherworldliness of place and of landscape – strange, secret, mystical, and ancient.

Sarob has been doing these lovely little books for a while now, featuring Mark Valentine and John Howard, who, this time out, are joined by two others, Peter Bell and Colin Insole.

Here we have 4 stories themed to the title;  Mark's, 'Roman Masks', is a story of a happening and a conjuring, of old Roman gods and of a missing deity inadvertently summoned whilst John Howard gives us 'Desire Path', as old routes cross with new and roads once travelled are revisited, occasionally simultaneously. 

I know I've read some Peter Bell before but I certainly need to read more, his 'Figures in a Landscape', was fabulous detailing a search for a lost 'horse' on a hillside in Gwent.  Colin Insole closes the proceedings with a fun and pulpy tale of ancient evil and generations of guardians protecting the land.

Altogether an entertaining quartet of stories and another in a long line of quality releases from Sarob. 

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A Caution For The Wise

A clergyman raises alarm in his new parish when, in contravention of local superstition, he crosses and then sets out to defile the 'Devil's Mound' thinking it no more than an ancient burial site where he can satisfy his antiquarian urges.

This 2023 short, written, directed, edited and co-produced by Gaius Brown and adapted from a chapter in the novel Skendleby by Nick Brown, has the welcome feel of an M.R. James adaptation to it and owes a - very - large tip of the hat to the master's 'A Warning to the Curious'. 

Made on an obviously tighter than tight budget it's understandably a little rough around the edges but there's a great central performance from Patrick O'Donnell as 'Reverend Heatly Smythe' and it maintains a palpable, moody atmosphere throughout thanks to cinematographer Joseph Mcdonald.  If I'm being hugely picky , I'd have loved it to have ended a minute earlier but this is a fantastic little homage to the golden ages of both spooky stories and spooky television.

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The Sanctuary And Other Strange Stories

R.B. Russell
Tartarus Press

Gathering together lost souls on the Sussex Downs, houses demolished and rediscovered, and half-remembered dreams, The Sanctuary and Other Strange Stories collects uncanny fiction written by R.B. Russell over two decades. Many stories are rooted in moments of real life, but are transformed into something disquieting, from the enigmatic commune of ‘The Sanctuary’ to the ex libris of a lost artist, these stories drift between memory, history and imagination.

Inspired by writers as varied as Mark Valentine and Ian Fleming, Robert Aickman, and Reggie Oliver, and shaped by influences, from forgotten cults and stamp collecting, Russell’s tales explore the boundaries between the ordinary and the otherworldly. Love, death, music and off-beat literary researches intertwine, giving rise to stories that feel both intimate and unsettling.

I've had the pleasure of reading Ray's fiction (and non-fiction) several times over the last few years and happily I have his new essay collection 'Bibliomancy & Other Essays' here on the top of the TBR mountain, but accompanying me on my recent travels has been this rather fine collection of short fictions that thanks to some health issues I've been reading on and off whenever I felt up to it over several months.

As the co-publisher of Tartarus Press it'll come as no surprise that the strange and the supernatural loom large in these stories but threaded through you'll find other of his interests such as cults and espionage.  Ray's love of a spy gives a distinct ITC spy-fi flavour to many of the stories and you can taste traces of a youth spent watching shows like 'The Prisoner', 'The Champions', and 'The Saint'.  Alongside this his fascination with the likes of the Scientologist cult, the Brotherhood of the Cross & Star, The Temple of Psychic Youth and T. Lobsang Rampa all of whom he wrote about in his book headed by his biography of the Plympton lama, 'T. Lobsang Rampa And Other Characters of Questionable Faith'.

Obviously it's a collection and in every collection you'll find yourself more invested in some stories more than others.  My interest in cults pales next to my love of spy-fi which lives deep in the shadow of my abiding love of a strange and spooky story.  There is though a lot to be said for breaking up your reading of a collection such as this one and so it got read piecemeal which helped as I kept coming back to it fresh and being re-immersed into Ray's story worlds.

It's a cracking read.  I've read a few of Ray's shorts before but I'm mostly familiar with his longer form work and so to see his obvious mastery of the form was a joy and this is heartily recommended to all connoisseurs of the strange. 

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Ampney Crucis Investigates

Ian Edgington
Simon Davis
2000AD / Rebellion / Hatchette

England, 1928. Lord Ampney Crucis, together with his loyal butler Cromwell, is an investigator into the paranormal. A survivor of the Somme, where he witnessed something otherworldly that tore his sanity in two and left him susceptible to the entities beyond everyday reality, he knows full well that dark creatures lurk in this green and pleasant land... Chilling Lovecraftian capers abound in this complete collection of Ampney’s adventures from writer Ian Edginton (Scarlet Traces) and artist Simon Davis (Sláine, Thistlebone)! 

I've picked up a few of these 2000AD partworks recently so expect some more here in the near future.  This one I'd never heard of but there was no way I was going to resist reading an Edwardian occult detective romp especially one created by two of modern 2000AD's best creators.

Crucis had a difficult war that led him to being hospitalised after seeing one of the elder beings materialise on a battlefield to eat the dead.  This has led to him becoming something of an expert in dealing with the uncanny and now his services are called upon whenever there's an outbreak of anything inconveniently odd.

The first few stories are fabulous, full of upper class, Edwardian derring do, witty banter and dazzlingly improbable occult escapades, but it gets a little lost as Crucis and his trusty aide Cromwell skip dimensions and everything goes a bit timey-whimey and connections to Edgington's 'Scarlet Traces' start to appear but, that said, it's still all good Moorcockian fun and I really hope there's another volume out there somewhere as like Crucis with a pink gin I'm simply gasping for another.

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The Thirteenth Floor Anthology

Guy Adams (editor)
Rebellion

Max goes worldwide!
London's Maxwell Towers have long been under the control of Max - an all-seeing AI intent on punishing wrongdoers and wicked tenants by sending them to the Thirteenth Floor, where unspeakable horrors come to life. Now, Max's coding has been embedded in computer systems all over the world, and there is no escape from his nightmarish reign.
Featuring thirteen brand-new stories by A. K. Benedict, Angela Slatter, Mason Cross, Una McCormack, Lavanya Lakshminarayan, Thana Niveau, James Lovegrove, Derek Farrell, MK Hardy, John Llewellyn Probert, Martyn Waites, Aubrey Wood, and James Goss.

'The Thirteenth Floor' with its occult AI 'Max' was created by writers John Wagner & Alan Grant and artist José Ortiz for the horror comic Scream!, but I first read it in the pages of the revived Eagle comic where it quickly became one of my favourite strips (along with 'The Tower King' - also drawn by Ortiz).  Then, a couple of years ago, long after both titles had faded into history, Max was rebooted by publisher Rebellion for a Scream & Misty special, which has now led us to this prose collection.

Max has gone global.  Rescued from the wreckage of Maxwell Towers, he has become the basis for a corporate AI tool installed in buildings all across the world.  He remains, in many ways, the same benevolent, paternal, caring Max, and he also remains, in all the other ways, the same retributive enthusiast we knew and loved, gleefully casting miscreants into his hellish thirteenth floor.

Among the contributors here we have various folks that'll be familiar to the world of Doctor Who fandom - Una McCormack, Guy Adams, James Goss - a few award winners and NYT bestseller writers - James Lovegrove, John Llewellyn Probert, Martyn Waites - and a host of others  - 15 in all, even though I kind of expected there to be two less.

I'm going to be entirely honest here and admit I picked this up on a nostalgia powered whim, I was in a reading slump and couldn't find anything else that I fancied and I pretty much expected nothing from it beyond a diverting tale or two, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.  It's a collection of well constructed and fun pulp horrors riffing on a fairly well-worn trope of crime and occult retribution, and I loved it. 

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NEWS: David Tibet presents HALLUCINATE CHILDREN at the DOX Gallery in Prague.

David Tibet the creative force behind Current 93 is hosting what he's rather fabulously called a "Gnostic cartoon PickNick", 'HALLUCINATE, CHILDREN' at the DOX Centre for Contemporary Art  in Prague from (the evening of) 22 Oct 2026 – 4 Apr 2027.

Through music, word and image David has long been one of our great esoteric, visionary artists and this show looks to pull together all those threads of a creative life that has included collaborations with, amongst many others, Steven Stapleton (of Nurse With Wound), Jhonn Balance & Peter Christopherson (of Coil), Michael Cashmore, Youth, Nick Cave, Tiny Tim, Shirley Collins, Andrew Liles and Anohni.

Photo by Ania Goszczyńska

From the gallery's website...

The exhibition Hallucinate, Children is being developed in collaboration with the artist and will present visual works spanning the full arc of Tibet’s career. It will introduce his artistic practice as an autonomous visual universe, closely interwoven with his music, writings, publishing activities, and long-standing engagement with visionary literature, Biblical and apocryphal texts, and marginal currents of spiritual imagination.

Tibet’s work emerges from a broad tradition of visionary art and literature: from John Milton, William Blake, MR James, Count Stenbock, and Thomas Ligotti to the British hallucinatory underground, Christian apocalypticism, and obscure supernatural writings. Hallucinate, Children invites viewers into a space in which the image is not decoration, but a sign: an urgent, unsettling, and strangely tender testimony to a world perpetually on the threshold of revelation.

For those unfamiliar with David's visual art we've previously shared a video made for his exhibition at the California State University, Fullerton, Begovich Gallery titled 'Invocation of Almost' which you can watch at the link below...

https://wyrdbritain.blogspot.com/2022/09/who-is-david-tibet.html?m=1

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Shadows Over Cymru: Uncanny Stories of the Welsh Weird

Aaron Worth (editor)
British Library 

From the peaks of Eryri to hidden valleys and haunted mines, the storied landscapes of Wales have inspired centuries of myth and folklore. Over time, these tales of the unexplained and the Otherworld have formed a unique strain of weird fiction. 

Continuing the British Library's 'Gilded Nightmares' series of lavish hardbacks is this rather fabulous collection of stories exploring the darker side of Wales.  

One only needs to glance at the Welsh flag to understand the importance of the mythic in Wales; the "land of my fathers" is a place of stories, a land steeped in mysteries old and new.  This collection utilises the geography, the mythology and the character of the country to explore it's very nature.  The book revels in a country awash with story; a country of hidden places, creatures, people, and gods.  Stories by authors steeped in the heritage - Arthur Machen, Dylan Thomas, Richard Hughes - and by those finding inspiration in it - Algernon Blackwood, L.T.C. Rolt, A.C Benson, John Wyndham, Marjorie Bowen - travel the Welsh hinterlands unveiling secrets and mysteries in all the dark, neglected and forgotten corners.

In the hands of these writers, many amongst the crème of the golden age of weird fiction, Wales is a land of uncanny mystery as unforgiving as it is inviting. A place where the fantastical finds itself at odds with the mundane; a land where the supernatural lurks, poised beneath the surface, watchful for the unwary.

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NEWS: The Lost Occult Books of Victor Neuburg

'We will leave the silver moon-flowers of old thought for the gold sun-flowers of our true Apollonian theme ... It is before Dionysus, the maddening one, the disturber, came rudely in the twilight to make the fair, even world, odd and fantastic; the horns thrusting apart the twin thighs of duality.  Out of that odd, wild, Bacchic art came Unity, for the order of the old tie was as a chaos to the goat-god...' 

- from 'Dionysus and Diana'

Coming soon - with your help - from the resurrected Vine Press is a fascinating sounding collection of 'lost' occult poems from Victor B. Neuburg.  Languishing, mostly unread, for over  a century this first publication is being marshalled into being by Justin Hopper (author of 'Old Weird Albion'), designer Stefan Musgrove and Neuburg's granddaughter Caroline who dedicated her life to preserving and promoting her grandfather's work.

 

Justin contacted me recently to help promote the Kickstarter they've set up to fund the publication -

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/oldweirdalbion/lost-occult-books-of-the-1920s-relaunching-vine-press

 

- and kindly provided the information below...

Victor Neuburg (almost certainly), Rites of Eleusis,
London, 1910. (From The Bystander, 1910)

In 1924 the poet, publisher and occultist Victor Neuburg was visited by unidentifiable spirits in his cottage in a small Sussex town. As he later put it, these voices ‘dictated’ poems to him – streams-of-consciousness pieces of prose steeped in esoteric symbolism. He wrote them down, nearly 100 pieces of writing, into the form of a book he called The Water Bearer. 

 

And no one would touch it. None less than Ralph Shirley, the editor of The Occult Review, told Victor that these were unique, wholly original, works, but ‘what publisher would risk it?’ 

For the next 100 years these poems sat, mostly unread, in a family chest. Until now. 

 

Victor Neuburg is best known as the magical (and sexual) partner of Aleister Crowley; as the man who discovered the poet Dylan Thomas; as a funny name that comes up when mentioning just about any aspect of early-20th century British counterculture. (An anarchist who advocated for gay rights and prison reform; the living connection between the Decadents and the Surrealists; friend to Austin Osman Spare and inspiration to Peter Warlock; early champion of nudists and yoga; the list continues.) 

 

‘Stan’, Dion Byngham, Victor Neuburg, ‘Frank’, 
late-1920s likely The Sanctuary, West Sussex. 
Photo copyright Justin Hopper. 

His published poetry books now sell for hundreds or even thousands, but perhaps his greatest-ever works – those which best espoused his bizarre hodge-podge of occult and spiritual beliefs – have been read by almost no one alive. 

 

We’re publishing these works as one of the last wishes of Caroline Neuburg, the poet’s granddaughter, who dove deeply into them – her copious notes on the symbolism in the works will act as introduction to the book The Water Bearer and Other Lost Works of Victor Neuburg. 

 

You can pre-order, and help make it all happen – a century in the making – through the 30th of October at www.vinepress.co.uk

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Oliver's Ghost

'Worlds Beyond' was an ITV series that somehow managed to run for 2 entire years - September 1986 to December 1988 - despite only consisting of 12 half hour episodes.   Each of those dozen episodes is purportedly based on stories from the archives of the Society for Psychical Research.

We've featured a few episodes from the series on Wyrd Britain over the years despite them being, on the whole, pretty woeful because I have a bit of a soft spot for them.  This, the series' final episode is perhaps the most fun but you probably shouldn't take that as any sort of indicator of quality.

Denholm Elliott is Sir Oliver Beresford reduced to turning his ancestral home into a hotel.  His, I assume, first bunch of guests - three American couples - have arrived and he, his wife and the maid are struggling to cope, hindered in no small part by the presence of the ghost of a little girl who keeps making one of the guests sleepwalk into other rooms - and into cupboard doors.

Writer Tony Williamson, who wrote the majority of the series - as well as many scripts for ITC shows including 'The Avengers', 'Department S', 'Jason King' - has thrown all ideas of spooky out of the window and gone for more of a bedroom farce sort of vibe and there're some fun one liners from the harassed Elliott but don't go looking for any chills.  I know most don't think of this series at all but, if you do, then think of it as more of a curio than anything else, a curio that was already horrendously dated when it was originally broadcast and one that pretty much deserves it's obscurity but, that said, I'll definitely feature it here again,

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Stephen Thrower's Coil Playlist

From 1986 to 1992 Stephen Thrower made several albums as a member of Coil which are crurrently being remastered and reissued by The Grey Area of Mute - pre-orders are available now for 'Gold is the Metal (With the Broadest Shoulders)'. 

To mark the occasion he was invited to assemble a playlist for the Freak Zone of the music that was being listened to by the three members at that time.  The playlist he's curated is delightfully obtuse but sonically cohesive including the likes of Faust, Can, The Fall, The Butthole Surfers, The Residents and others.

Available (at the time of writing) for only another 29 days this is a fun glimpse behind the curtain of a fiercely creative time for the band.  

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m003227c

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Come Sing For The Harrowing

Dan Coxon
Clash Books

I have a confession for you, I don't buy many books by modern authors.  My reading material is mostly provided by authors long departed from this world - Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Walter de la Mare, etc - and beyond a few favourites - Mark Valentine (and the wider circle orbiting Tartarus Press), Alan Moore, Michael Andrew Hurley - I read very few but I am aware of others ... well, some ... one or two.

A name I have been aware of for a while now but mostly in his guise as an editor of anthologies such as the 'Mythago Wood' collection, 'Heartwood', that's been staring indignantly at me from my shelf for about 18 months now, is Dan Coxon, but I have to admit that what caught my eye more than his name was that fabulous artwork because as you all know one should always judge a book by it's cover and I judged this one to be right up my street.

It'll come as no surprise that inside the cover is a collection of folk horror tales, albeit ones infused with a touch of the DNA of "strange story" maestros like Robert Aickman, Joel Lane and some of the folks mentioned earlier.  In these stories old gods are conjured, entire lives are erased, sacrifices are made and harsh truths are learned.

Not all the stories work as well as you'd hope, which is ever the case with collections / anthologies, but they all offer a frisson of the weird and made for an enthralling read.

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Nurse Will Make It Better

We've sung the praises of Brian Clemens here before as the mastermind behind a veritable host of Wyrd Britain classics such as Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde', 'Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter', 'And Soon the Darkness' as well as writing and producing for TV shows like 'Danger Man', 'The Avengers', 'The Professionals' for the likes of Hammer and ITC but the mid 1970s ITV series 'Thriller' was his baby, outlining every episode and scripting 38 of them including this one from the fourth series.

'Nurse Will Make It Better' has diplomat's daughter 'Charley' (Linda Liles) breaking her back in a horse riding accident and being 'cared' for by warty, devil-worshipping nurse 'Bessy Morne' (Diana Dors) who indoctrinates her, and her younger sister, into the cackling, coke drinking world of eeeevillll.  Ranged against them are elder sister 'Ruth' (Andrea Marcovicci), boyfriend 'Simon' (Michael Culver), bodyguard 'Carson' (Ed Bishop - UFO) and Patrick Troughton as the demon hunter 'Lyall'.

Dors is at her late career best here wailing, cackling, shrieking and taunting for all she's worth consumed in her role as the frumpy, malevolently satanic witch, whilst the under-utilised Troughton is previewing his role of 'Father Brennan' from the following years' 'The Omen', but this is very much an ensemble piece and the cast all rise to the occasion to make this a fun slice of Hammery pulp horror brought to the screen by 'Sapphire and Steel' director Shaun O'Riordan.

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The End of Everything

M. John Harrison
Serpent's Tail 

Phillip Tennent makes his living at the tideline, collecting artefacts that wash up from the Channel. It's been years since the crisis changed everything, but its exact nature remains obscured. Government barely functions, the seas are full of new creatures, Europe has been mislaid. It feels like the end. 
Now Phillip has fished out of the water an object he can't keep. A creature that keeps changing. An artefact he must take inland, before it destroys everything he thinks he knows.

I've only ever read a couple of things by Harrison but have been equal parts bemused and besotted by them and this newest Booker Prize shortlisted novel continues that noble tradition.

On the beach, in a post breakdown Britain, Phillip fishes an 'artefact' from the sea, unwilling to dispose of it he embarks on a journey through a disjointed land that feels achingly familiar but entirely lost and unlikely.  Meanwhile, on her own journey is his aunt, the fabulously callous, Marnie, in equal parts searching and escaping, moving in parallel and then tandem with Philip and the artefact as it slowly assimilates itself.

It's a brilliantly befuddling read which, perhaps, offers a commentary on contemporary fears over immigration and loss of cultural identity.  It holds a kinship with the likes of J.G. Ballard at his apocalyptic best and with contemporary books such as Rebecca Gransden's stunning 'Figures Crossing the Field Towards the Group'.

It is, I think, a book that will polarise utterly and I imagine few who read it will be tepid in their opinions.  Personally, I thought it to be bonkers and brilliant but equally I was pleased to leave that broken world behind. 

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The Casebook of Stamford Hawksmoor

Bryan Talbot
Jonathan Cape

With top-hat and cane in hand, Scotland Yard's DI Stamford Hawksmoor shadows the murky backstreets of London on the hunt for a sadistic serial killer.
In the dying days of the French occupation of Britain, through gaslit, cobbled streets and squalid alleyways, stalks the great eagle Detective Stamford Hawksmoor in search of the homicidal manic whose killing spree claims dozens of seemingly unconnected victims, from random murders to targeted political assassinations.
The deeper he delves, the more he puts himself in mortal danger, pitting himself against unknown antagonists whilst under the scrutiny of the feared anti-terrorist squad, and the more he is forced to resort to working outside the law.
A prequel to Talbot's pioneering Grandville series, The Casebook of Stamford Hawksmoor is also an intriguing, labyrinthine stand-alone mystery graphic novel set in a world of hansom cabs and pea-souper fogs, where explosive violence can erupt at any second - and does!

An unexpected but very welcome return to the steampunk world of 'Grandville'.  I thought we were done with Bryan Talbot's animorphic playground after the culmination of Inspector le Brock's tale but here we are, drawn back in, with a story taken from the files of his mentor, the eagle detective, Stamford Hawksmoor.

After years of violent struggle, Britain is on the verge of separating from the French Empire.  Tensions are still high with anti-French sentiment at the fore.  In this simmering tinderbox, Hawksmoor is set to investigating both the suicide of his estranged brother and a series of grisly murders.

The book generally feels a lot more insular than the 'Grandville' volumes and, as stated in the preface, it wears it's influence from the Sherlock Holmes stories on it's sleeve but is in no way a slavish homage; it's tightly plotted, elegantly told and beautifully realised but none of that should be of any surprise to anyone familiar with Talbot's work.  It's an accomplished, self-contained story, and I'd be unsurprised if it remains so, but I must say I’d also be a little disappointed.

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Ghost Signals: The Shadowlands of British Analogue Television 1968 - 1995

Stephen Prince
A Year in the Country

Before the ubiquity of streaming, British television was a landscape with room for strange experiments, folk-horror nightmares, and “wyrd” transmissions. Today, many of these programmes have vanished from official channels, leaving behind only “ghost signals“: a shadowland of terrestrial TV hidden in plain sight across the unmediated and unmarketed corners of the internet.
Ghost Signals maps this territory from 1968 – the foundational “wyrd” year of acid folk and iconic folk horror – to 1995, the dawn of the digital revolution. The book delves into a unique era where public funding met social experimentation, creating a “broad diet” of television that was often as challenging as it was chilling. 

This, the latest collection of writings from Stephen Prince, the man behind the always excellent 'A Year in the Country' blog, takes us on a tour of various obscure televisual gems from '68 to '95.  For Stephen these 'Ghost Signals' provide an insight into the maybe more ephemeral of what we refer to here as Wyrd TV; programmes such as 'The Great Albert', 'Jack B Nimble', 'Lost Property', 'The Moon Stallion', programmes that have avoided the limelight, that have maintained a sense of anonymity but still provide a reflection of the concerns and the focus of their times.

Obviously, Stephen and I share a hobby / interest / obsession (delete as applicable) and so I'm familiar with many of his subjects but he always manages to tease out a morsel or two that raise an eyebrow and he's a digger extraordinaire so alongside those old favourites there are a couple of tantalising treats of programmes I had no idea existed - 'A Pattern of Roses', 'Shades', 'The Plant' - and his analysis are ever cogent, and insightful, mining details from his subjects that make for fascinating reading.

I'm a pretty sparse user of the internet, for music and movies mostly, and I'm not a great fan of reading from a screen - yes, I do appreciate the irony - but, of the few blogs I do follow, AYitC is a perennial favourite, and his books are always a welcome addition to the Wyrd Britain bookshelves.

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