I’m an Irish author who lives close to three very different forests: deciduous, planted coniferous, and the planned gardens of a former stately home that once welcomed WB Yeats and several other famous writers. I’ve always loved the woods – it often feels like stepping through a portal into some other, stranger parallel world – and drew huge inspiration from these places for Shiver the Whole Night Through. I wanted the forest to feel like a character, which was sentient and had agency. I incorporated several real-life locations into the fictional Shook Woods…and wrote a lot of the story in the forest, gazing into the dark trees, waiting for them to speak.
A group of disparate Medieval travellers finds themselves marooned in a spooky castle in the middle of a forest. Some strange enchantment means they’re unable to speak, so each tells their tale through the medium of the Tarot. I love Calvino – the kind of stone-cold genius who made everything look easy – and I love this book, which immerses you deep within the forest: an almost mythical realm where anything feels possible.
A group of travellers chance to meet, first in a castle, then a tavern. Their powers of speech are magically taken from them and instead they have only tarot cards with which to tell their stories. What follows is an exquisite interlinking of narratives, and a fantastic, surreal and chaotic history of all human consciousness.
The English novelist famously denied that she was rewriting fairy-tales for adults in this brilliant story collection, rather digging down for the core truth of each then using it to write something genuinely new. But she definitely tapped into something elemental in those original Grimm-style stories, whose heart and mind lie in the forest, in particular with pieces such as The Erl-King, The Company of Wolves and Wolf-Alice.
With an introduction by Helen Simpson. From familiar fairy tales and legends - Red Riding Hood, Bluebeard, Puss in Boots, Beauty and the Beast, vampires and werewolves - Angela Carter has created an absorbing collection of dark, sensual, fantastic stories.
Tolkien’s fantasy epic is packed with forests – Mirkwood, Lothlórien, Fangorn, the Old Forest, and many more – and these aren’t just big bunches of trees grouped together. In LOTR, the forest is always alive. The trees move, think, talk. They play a key role in some of the plot developments later on. They ruled Middle Earth during some of its formative years. They have, are, and make magic.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, the Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth, it remained lost to him. After many ages it fell by chance into the hands of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins.
Essentially two parts of one book, Secret History and The Final Dossier see Mark Frost – co-writer, with the legendary David Lynch, of the equally legendary TV series – returning to the dark, dark woods which cast a baleful shadow on the troubled logging town. The woods are the source of all evil in Twin Peaks: malevolence, mystery, mayhem, murder. In real-life Lynch once described the forest as being “everything those old fairy-tales made you feel”.
The crucial sequel to the New York Times bestselling The Secret History of Twin Peaks, this novel bridges the two series, and takes you deeper into the mysteries raised by the new series.
The return of Twin Peaks is one of the most anticipated events in the history of television. The subject of endless speculation, shrouded in mystery, fans will come flocking to see Mark Frost and David Lynch’s inimitable vision once again grace the screen. Featuring all the characters we know and love from the first series, as well as a list of high-powered actors in new roles, the…
A tropical forest in Africa is the epicentre of a bizarre and very troubling phenomenon. Through a sort of “leak” in space-time, everything is slowly turning to crystal, and this “disease” will eventually seep out into the rest of the world. An English doctor goes on an Apocalypse Now-style journey into the forest to try and understand. Ballard’s sci-fi classic is as weird and thought-provoking as always, and the forest itself is a palpable presence throughout.
From J. G. Ballard, author of 'Crash' and 'Cocaine Nights' comes his extraordinary vision of an African forest that turns all in its path to crystal.
Through a 'leaking' of time, the West African jungle starts to crystallize. Trees metamorphose into enormous jewels. Crocodiles encased in second glittering skins lurch down the river. Pythons with huge blind gemstone eyes rear in heraldic poses. Most flee the area in terror, afraid to face a catastrophe they cannot understand.
But some, dazzled and strangely entranced, remain to drift through this dreamworld forest: a doctor in pursuit of his ex-mistress, an enigmatic Jesuit…
Shiver the Whole Night Through is a YA novel, blending mystery and horror, about a bullied Irish youngster drawn into a dream world of magic, desire, hope, and revenge. After months of harassment and romantic heartbreak, seventeen-year-old Aidan Flood feels ready to end it all.
But when he learns that local girl Sláine McAuley actually has, he discovers a new sense of purpose and becomes determined to find out what happened to her. Aidan isn’t sure if beautiful Sláine is a ghost, a demon, or the figment of his imagination. The weather is turning colder, an ancient evil has awoken – and it might just be the death of them all.
To hide a corporation’s failure to properly service a space ship, Captain Jonas Stryker is prosecuted but saved from imprisonment by a dying man, who hires Stryker to collect asteroids for their mineral content. Stryker soon finds he must stop a shadowy corporate group called The Board, who employ space piracy, terrorism, and even weaponised asteroids to overthrow the Federation government.
Set in Lagrange points, space stations, the Moon and outback Australia, it is a fast-moving story with some speculative future technology. If you were interested in the NASA attempt to alter the orbit of the asteroid Dimorphos, you might…
When a trial to cover-up a corporate failure ends Captain Jonas Stryker's career, he wants revenge against The Board, a ruthless, shadowy organization with limitless funds that employs space piracy, terrorism, and even weaponised asteroids. Posing as a space miner, Stryker learns that The Board wants him killed, while a young female SCIB police agent wants retribution against him for having her career spoiled at his trial. As Stryker avoids attempts to kill him, he becomes the only chance to prevent The Board from overturning the Federation Government and imposing a Fascist-style rule. A story of greed, corruption and honour,…
