Thursday, January 08, 2004

HERTZAN CHIMERA'S TOP TEN READS OF ALL TIME
I started this thread on some list about the top five books of all time (IMHO) and it didn't half remind me of the great books I have read in many genres over the years, so I added five more: here's the list in no particular order.

thomas harris - hannibal
haruki murakami - the wind-up bird chronicles
jeff noon - vurt
octavia e butler – dawn, xenogenesis1
nick cave - and the ass saw the angel
kurt vonnegut - slapstick (or lonesome no more)
haruki murakami - a wild sheep chase
william gibson - burning chrome (collection)
william peter blatty - legion
patrick suskind - perfume

Wednesday, January 07, 2004

LOVE SONGS by Hertzan Chimera
It's been a while since I saw this online, so here it is on my very own blog.
Enjoy:

Now, lying totally fucked in the damp wreckage of her bed, her half-shaven head on my hairless boy-chest, I can see the tattoos all over her body. Not ink tattoos like the world famous adornments to the backs of Yakuza hard men, but flesh tattoos; designs raised from the substrata of veins and follicles. Drawn through epidermic impulse into pictorial realisation. Tattoos of the mind; a living twenty-four square foot canvas. Imagery delicate and intricate while at the same time brutal, kaleidoscopic depictions of her sleeping psyche; the tool at the root of their hewing.

When I touch one of the skin forms (an interesting little icon with long legs, horns and spiny back) it dissolves. Skis through snow. Turns to an oily residue. A blurred memory of its former symbolism.

Stephanie stirs in her sleep, alien keystrokes dance across her lips. The destruction I had just caused instantly repaired by her dreamy design. I brush a hand through an entire phalanx of dermoforms, down her back and over her buttocks, drawing a greasy trail through the carnage. Again Stephanie shudders against sleep’s cotton wool embrace. Imagery rebuilt. Icons reformatted.

A game; ha-ha… I shuffle round on the sopping mattress, settling myself into pole position. A cold rasping sound escapes her throat like over rich choux pastry. I draw my right hand up the back of her legs, from the skin-tattooed ball of her right foot; across the wrinkles of her arch; smoothly over the heel; up the Achilles tendon taught as wire; ever-so-recklessly disfiguring imagery into a slurry of sleep shudders and rambling back brain feedback. Up the calf with an open hand. Plunging into the trough at the back of her knee. Up the inside of the thigh.

Stephanie shuddering more and more violently with every tentative inch of ascension. Up to the calligraphisized gash. Grasping her vagina as the jolting movements become a cold shiver, wet and clammy as you like. Massaging memories of vaginal calligraphy up over that wonderfully white arse. Stephanie sobbing a deep ditch of ecstasy.

I allow myself a nasty little laugh, forcefully now along the corrugation of ribcage, up the back of her right arm, annihilating dreams she jabbers at the disturbing intensity of the cerebral turmoil; on up the neck blending jugular vein into ear over the crest of skull over temple and cheek. Sliming beyond my most ludicrous expectation. A ritual reorganisation.
She rolls her shoulders onto me. Draws her legs up into a foetal attitude. Then explodes poker rigid as the skin rebleeds its magnificent tapestry. Dry ice on her upper lip condenses to marbled beads.

I drag my disgusting hand down her throat, over her prominent clavicles, wiping dreams to sludge, molesting her tiny nippleless breasts again and again, just rubbing the flesh to a slaking treacle, down to the barbwire defending the stigmata that so flamboyantly bisects her thighs. And in. Finger by finger to a grand total of three. Then crowbarring in a fourth. Stephanie, her mouth ripped wide open by the horror of her manipulated slumber.
I plunge my tongue into her mouth, tasting the tannin of its curious catfur coating. The charcoal scent of her tortured sighs as she grinds down on my entire hand. Choking on the whole. The brailed calligraphy of her vulva restamping entrance codes on the back of my hand. Over and over, reprinting, rescanning….

I whip out my fist with one sharp tug. Stephanie’s body flips into the air. A creamy exegesis scintillates the already manky mattress. Again a readjustment of position sees me taking a jockey’s pose, perched upon her steaming thighs. Hands plunged deep into the body gore. Hands either side of her. Body Wanking. Clawfists now dredging through clavicle candy and breast fat, rib gristle and belly meat. Thumbs crashing over her gaping pudenda. Restructuring the Sanskrit on velum into a grossly lacerated cold custard fantasy.

The harder and faster I dig up the dirt, the more intense and intricate its reinterpretation. A singularly complex cry escapes her. She bucks underneath, nearly unseating me. Digging my heals in, my percheron bucks on. Eyes nailed shut. Screwed tight. Intoxicating fumes of aniseed and ozone lifting off her like a ground fog on a chilling autumn dawn. She arches her back an unbelievable angle. I press on, driving my hands through the slurry of her breasts and the seem to dislodge…

Stephanie snaps awake. Sees me over her. Sees her displaced breasts.
“Now you know… the cat is well and truly… out of the bag.” She gasps.
She reaches across the bed for the telephone, “This you will like…”
She taps in a five digit number. “Think of a name… Got one?”
“Man or a woman?” I ask…
“Don’t matter.”
“Okay..”

She gets a call connected tone and holds the handset to my mouth, “Say it, now! You only get one chance!”
I choose something classy, “Jane Templeton Rice.”
Quickly Stephanie tosses the telephone aside. Tumbling through the air, it draws a rainbow trail of fibres emancipating the stinking sweat and other trace elements present in the claustrophobic atmosphere, a biogenetic ululation. The glowing fibres knot together as the air is whipped up icy cold and naked, a visibly emaciated redhead woman hits the floor with a resounding thump. The landed trout glistening wetly as frontal lobe hyper stimulation waves scamper through her freshly formed femininity. Her eyelids rip open revealing eyes as clear as copper sulphate crystals. The red central blemish on her freckled forehead. Burst blood vessel? Tilka?

“Tchick tchick.” Stephanie clicks her teeth, as if to a dog. Her cold wet body still beneath me gives out a final involuntary spasm.
“Here, girlie…” she calls to the teleported female, congratulating me, “Nice piece of work. For an apprentice..” she beams maniacally, reaching for the fairground dentist’s toy and making it whirr and whiz as the redhead I had baptised Jane begins to crawl towards us slowly slipping into character. A sinister crossbreed of sturm und drang.
“Hold out the pretty hand for me…” Stephanie the contralto. The redhead holds out her left hand.

Before I can comprehend what is going on, Stephanie shoves the dentist’s drillbit right under the nail of Jane’s index finger. Tugging out a red fibre from under the nail that stretches to a length of six or seven inches. The redhead passes out.
“What are you doing?” I exclaim.
“Nerves of steel, these whores.” Stephanie slithers from beneath me extricating the long red fibre from under my Jane’s index fingernail. She wraps the bleeding fibre round her right hand, playing out a few extra yards, “Nerves of steel.”
The hand becomes a glistening ball of fibre in the blink of an eye. She kneels up on the bed in front of me, “This will blow your fucking mind.”

She pulls her breasts right off. Just rips them off with her free appendage and stuffs the nerve-swathed ball into each gangrenously gaping hole in turn until the hand clears. She raises her head to the ceiling and lets out a single tone. An operatic A flat minor. And, wow, if this girl I had picked up in a local bar just a half hour before didn’t just sprout monofilament wings from the holes that used to house her breasts. If they didn’t just unfurl and dry to crisp Perspex wafers beating to the pulse of her racing heart. If she didn’t just flap those microfine wings and rise gracefully into the air. Back arched. Singing tone poems and laughing daydreams.

Songs from the heart of gladness.

Saturday, January 03, 2004

HERTZAN CHIMERA PLAYS "MR CLARINET"
This is a special recording of the Hertzan Chimera short story "Mr Clarinet". Arranged and spoken by the northern artist who inspired the original short story all those years back, Stewart Shelley.

"MR CLARINET" MP3

you gotta love Stewart's scouse accent

Thursday, December 25, 2003

YôROPPA IS FINISHED
My third Hertzan Chimera novel Yôroppa has just finished. What an awful feeling. I have lived with this 'seaside community' novel for the last few years, writing it in fits and starts. And now the first draft (I don't really do second drafts unless I really wanna rewrite the entire novel, as I did incorporating Red Hedz and two other short novels into Szmonhfu) is finished. Because of the freeform way I wrote it and the non-mainstream themes it deals with, its structure and narrative style, it has come to an abrupt end when I least expected it, 20,000 words short of its intended 100,000 word target.

It's not like I have 'stalled' or got writers block or anything. This really is the end of the novel in every way. The novel can't just go on. This is the way it should end, as befuddling as it is. I had been building up to this since page one really but a real easy solution to the knotted narrative offered itself up over the last few days like a willing sacrificial lamb and I embraced it with all my writing ability. It's not even really about horror (though there are some shocking accounts therein) and it ended up being about something like the Religion of the Reader(!)

Very bizarre, and unexpected.

The thing that annoyed me the most was that after Yôroppa taking me nearly two years to get to 50,000 words, after two stalling periods of writer's block (sic) that lasted nearly six months each, after a Japanese holiday that I thought would inspire the narrative along (and didn't), after a German holiday that I thought would inspire the narrative along (and didn't, really) the last 30,000 words fell from my fingertips like honey from a spoon..... there was no joy or elation, just the inevitability of the words leading to the 'resolution' of certain loose threads.

I had allowed Yôroppa its little 'tantrums' and left it to sulk in a corner (during those above mentioned periods) while I busied myself completing "CHIM & HER", "CHIMERAWORLD #1" and the TERROR TALES RELAUNCH.

Maybe that was all that it was waiting for. A free block of my time? It took its chance and allowed itself to be easily finished. The way it should have always been. I remember it was when I realised, a couple months back, that I should stop trying to be a mainstream horror writer and just write what I truly enjoy with no concern for financial reward or agent/publisher approval that the job became so much easier.

maybe that was it.

Tuesday, December 23, 2003

TERROR TALES RELAUNCHES
Last night I officially relaunched Terror Tales ezine. There is a more subtle and easier to navigate design, as those who know the old site will know from first click.

Content highlights include:
An interview with Bruce Campbell.
Articles on Body Mutation, Embalming, Japan Eye, Horror Metal & 3D Games.
There are 14 pieces of fiction from the likes of Ed Lee, Charlee Jacob and Weston Ochse.
There are 6 poets including the great Mike Arnzen.
There is a gallery feature of artist Mitch Phillips.
The Book Review section, like the Terror Tales name, remains from the old site.
The forums are all new.

enjoy!

Friday, December 19, 2003

TO HELL WITH NOSTALGIA - HORIZON IS OFFICIALLY RUBBISH
Okay, page one of a new Blogging life starts right here.... I was watching some show on the TV in the UK the other night. A show called HORIZON - now remember this was one of my favourite shows EVER.

A travesty it has become.

HORIZON used to hold up the banner for me as an inquisitive 'yoof' such as I was twenty or more years back - it explored the boundaries of physics in a way that those dull Open University programmes on at 7am Sunday morning never did. It had content, for the love of Christ.

Last night's show was about TIME, and to be quite frank, it was ludicrous pop-culturised trash of the highest order.

In respect of how great HORIZON used to be, I will now lay down the basics of my Hertzan Chimera Unit. My own personal physics theory.

IT IS A GRAVITY UNIVERSE

I love Noble Gases. Noble gases are the great loners of the universe. Is it just me who sees Noble gases as the key to the atom, the pre hydrogen, the bearer of the Big Bang?

Helium, the first Noble Gas in the Atomic Table of Periodicity weighs 4 atomic units. Each of these four atomic units have electromagnetic components but Noble Gases refuse to bond electromagnetically. There is no net static charge from a Noble Gas.

This says something fundamental to me. It says, "I am trapped in jail and no fucker is gonna let me out." It also tells me something more fundamental about the real structure of Helium.

In contemporary models of the Helium atom, you got two protons (net charge of +1), you got two gluey neutrons (net charge of 0) and you got two virtually massless electrons (net charge of -1). An atom is said to be Noble when it has filled electron 'shells' in the combinations 2, 8, 8, 16.... blah blah balh. Totally arbitrary rules with no understanding.

In the Hertzan Chimera noble atom, there are no electrons. There are no protons. Each Hertzan Chimera Unit is the universe pulling in from all directions, multidimensionally. FACT. This is the only way it can work, the universe is made of gravity and this gravitiy manifests itself in specific 3-dimensional regions of our space in the form of NEUTRONS.

Yes, those beauties who are only attributed with half the Helium nucleus content. Neutrons. They are mass 1, net charge 0 entities. They are a measurable result of this multi-dimensional gravity. They 'weigh' something.

Now, these gravitational entities (I see them like a multidimensional representation similar in structure to the rotating dynamic of spiral galaxies, spinning as the universe pulls in all directions towards their centre) have physical boundaries that can be exceeded. If these physical boundaries are exceeded, then a electromagnetic component is activated. This electromagnetic component can be either clockwise or anti-clockwise to the multi-dimensional direction of fall in for the specific HC Unit.

In a Helium atom, imagine four spiral galaxies at 90 degrees to each other, arranged in tetrahedral shape that is itself spinning like fury as the excess energy from one HC Unit is sucked up be its adjacent neighbuor. This close-quarters fuelling of the 4-HC-Unit helium atom ensures that there is no net charge for the helium atom to bond with nearby atoms no matter how aggressive their valency.

0_+_0_- see how there is linear non-disruptive flow through the cycle?

Imagine these four HC Units in a helium atom. In this example, you will see how there are four units with three phases; 0 (not exceeded), + (clockwise exceeded) and - (anti-clockwise exceeded). These are not static devices because the electromagnetic component is quickly absorbed into the HC Unit forcing it to flip into the opposite mode. If it was + last time, it can only be - next time... all four spinning around each other, clockwise/anticlockwise actively. No net charge, no reactivity.

There is a geometrically complex 20-element solution for the next Noble gas Neon and the same formula works. These are totally active but totally stable geometric shapes where each excess is absorbed into its neighbour at just the right frequency. This also explains why the Group 1 Alkali Metal LITHIUM is so reactive, there are basically 6 HC Units in a standard Lithium.

+_0_-_0_+_0 - see how the 2 +'s in the 6 HC ring are overpowering the system, breaking it's purity of flow? There is an excess of charge spilling out from the system, hence Lithium's reactivity.

Back to the 'dormant' Neutrons fumbling around in pre-space as all bits of the universe tug and pull. Imagine these 0 net charge entities happily moving around the universe for zillions of years then suddenly... ONE HERTZAN CHIMERA UNIT ignites a chain reaction of electromagnetic exchange....... the "matter" universe is born in one CONCENTRIC ENERGY BLAST. Space is created - the dimensions already existed; there was always gravity. Now the universe has electromagnetic charge, too.

the Big Bang (in the classic sense) is a fallacy

Thursday, December 18, 2003

GOD, HE'S RIGHT - THIS IS A REALLY BORING BLOG
But what can be done to spice it up?

I know, a competition. That ALWAYS works.

Okay, gimme the answer to this simple question "What was the name of Hertzan Chimera's 1990 novel (hint: he was then using the writing name Michael Paul Peter --- it might help if you visit www.hertzanchimera.com (you can sorta have a snoop around in the PUBLISHED WORK part of the site)).

I will put all the correct answers in a bowler hat (don't all Englishers have these?) and scoop out the winner.

The winner wins a signed and personally deadicated copy of my most recent paperback novel SZMONHFU.

Send answers to boringblog@hertzanchimera.com
HOLY FUCK OF CHRIST, THIS IS A BORING BLOG
According to a very good 'programmer' friend of mine, this is an exceedingly dull BLOG - it's tedious, repetitive and there's no fun at all in it, there's no insight into the REAL HERTZAN CHIMERA (whatever that means, since he's a mere keyboard entity shadow of my former self) and worst of all, it reads like a series of pathetic whiny press releases further cementing my place in literary obscurity.

point taken, oh great critical one

From tomorrow then (I mean why do today what you can do tomorrow?) I will turn this fuckin' shambles of a psychoBlogical uncaning into what it was always meant to be '''' ROTTEN FISH '''' and some camel piss for good measure.

you have been summarily warned
BRUCE CAMPBELL EXCLUSIVE TERROR TALES RELAUNCH INTERVIEW
It is with great joy that I can officially confirm (I am looking at the text right now on my monitor) that I do indeed have an exclusive interview with none other than Mr Evil Dead ASH, aka Bruce Campbell. There's some wicked revelations in it and it's Bruce Cambell!!!

terror tales relaunches on the 22nd of December, 2003

Wednesday, December 17, 2003

BUKKAKEWORLD - CHIMERA'S FIRST SHORT STORY OF 2003
Yeah, I know it's a long time to have not written a short story but...
Hey, no excuses, I know. But I have been busy. Chimeraworld editing. Chim & Her editing. Terror Tales (editing and redesigning). Yôroppa (novel 3) rewriting. But last night for one hour, I had time to myself. My very own writer release. Yeah, 1200 words is doable in one hour, it's only 20 words a minute, that's nothing when you got the writing fugue, for Christ's sake.

I am thinking of taking it to W.H.C. in Phoenix this year for the Gross Out Contest.

Tuesday, December 16, 2003

MONDAY, THE 22ND OF DECEMBER
That's looking like the actual date in stone for the relaunch of TERROR TALES E-ZINE. The majority of the content is there right now, just finishing off and waiting on one or two articles.

you guys're gonna love it.

Thursday, December 11, 2003

HAMMOND GALLERY PROUDLY EXHIBITS HERTZAN CHIMERA ART GALLERY
It is with great pleasure that I announce a new venue willing to support the crazed (and now mostly axe-destroyed) psycho-figurative life-size paintings I did throughout the eighties and early nineties. Many thanks to THE HAMMOND GALLERY for allowing me this display area.

it's always good to air the old laundry

Wednesday, December 10, 2003

MID-TERM UPDATE
With a concerted effort, my third novel Yôroppa has just crashed through the 70,000 word mark and my aim of disintegrating all narrative content from the plot is moving along at a pace. It's a very odd exercise trying to UN WRITE a novel like this, but a worthy one.

At the same time, I am also directing the final touches to the redesign of Terror Tales. The content is beginning to swell the issue and the style is now all but perfect. It is understated, clean and real professional looking. It is gonna look unrecognisable to those regulars to the old Terror Tales in both presentation and content.

My Stoker non-fiction nominated interview book SPIDERED WEB is now also available through EBOOKAD