UNITED KINGDOM AUTHOR · FICTION · HORROR TALES
Simon Clark
Simon Clark (born 20 April 1958) is a horror novelist from Doncaster, England. He is the author of the novel The Night of the Triffids, the novella Humpty's Bones, and the short story Goblin City Lights, which have all won awards. Most of his stories are based in Yorkshire, his home county. He also uses a technique that he calls "The Art of Wandering". The idea for Goblin City Lights arose from wandering in a London graveyard.
Tal stretched out his hand and pulled himself up onto the next out-thrust spike of the Tower.
— from The Fall, 2000
Most acclaimed
The Fall
2000
The vampiric virus unleashed in The Strain has taken over New York City. It is spreading and soon will envelop the globe. Amid the chaos, Eph Goodweather—head of the Centers for Disease Control's team—leads a band out to stop these bloodthirsty monsters. But it may be too late. Ignited by the Master's horrific plan, a war erupts between Old and New World vampires, each vying for control. At the center of the conflict lies a book, an ancient text that contains the vampires' entire history . . . and their darkest secrets. Whoever finds the book can control the outcome of the war and, ultimately, the fate of us all. And it is between these warring forces that humans—powerless and vulnerable—find themselves no longer the consumers but the consumed. Though Eph understands the vampiric plague better than anyone, even he cannot protect those he loves. His ex-wife, Kelly, has been transformed into a bloodcrazed creature of the night, and now she stalks the city looking for her chance to reclaim her Dear One: Zack, Eph's young son. With the future of humankind in the balance, Eph and his team, guided by the brilliant former professor and Holocaust survivor Abraham Setrakian and exterminator Vasiliy Fet and joined by a crew of ragtag gangsters, must combat a terror whose ultimate plan is more terrible than anyone has imagined—a fate worse than annihilation.
Stranger
The Stranger, ‘what was he to me, this phantom enshrouded in visions, sinking further away as the years went by, deeper and deeper into a reality, which I could but hate? What did his appearances and exits forebode? I still do not know… I would run into him on multiple occasions and in different circumstances. Besides, all these encounters coincided with major events of my life, though most of them had sunk into oblivion and now only his ghostly appearances on this stage, passing by and beyond, illuminate those rare moments. ‘Was he simply the good or the evil prophet? Even such discrimination was beyond my power to discern from the complicated night spirals he had woven into my path.’ ‘The atmosphere in these stories is somehow reminiscent of Patrick Modiano – a fog in which every detail is distinct and crystal-clear, yet we have no idea where we are. And we wander and jostle against each other like in a crowded aquarium, making heroic existential efforts to find out how and why we are there, and who is watching from outside?’ – Literary Forum