Mammoth Books presents Mami Wata

Book 463: Mammoth Books

by Simon Kurt Unsworth

Genres: Horror

Synopsis

When I was first asked to contribute to Exotic Gothic 3 (which was to feature Gothic-influenced stories in non-Gothic environments), I agreed without really thinking about it," Unsworth explains, "and then spent a long time struggling, trying to work out how, precisely, I was going to manage it or quite how to make a start. "I knew what I wanted to do, sort of, but not exactly how to do it, so one day alarmingly close to the deadline I did a fun thing: I freewheeled through Google. Using a small document about Zambian myths and cultures I found online (I set the story in Zambia for no reason other than an old family friend lives there and it seemed exotic in Gothic terms), I used one Zambian word from it as a search term and read what came up, took one intriguing Zambian term from the search results and searched for that, etc, and disappeared into Google's merry depths. "I ended up with an academic paper about a particular myth, a travel blog about a sort of beer made from corn and a weird little 'my God's better than your God' blog by a kid in Africa, and somewhere in the middle of that, the story appeared.

Release date: July 26, 2012

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 160

Sample

SIMON KURT UNSWORTH’S STORIES have appeared in the Ash-Tree Press anthologies At Ease with the Dead, Exotic Gothic 3 and Shades of Darkness, as well as Lovecraft Unbound, Gaslight Grotesque, The Black Book of Horror 6, Creature Feature, Where the Heart Is and Black Static magazine.

His story “The Church on the Island” was nominated for a World Fantasy Award and was reprinted in The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 19 and The Mammoth Book of the Best of Best New Horror. His first collection, Lost Places, was recently issued by Ash-Tree, to be followed by Strange Gateways from PS Publishing.

“When I was first asked to contribute to Exotic Gothic 3 (which was to feature Gothic-influenced stories in non-Gothic environments), I agreed without really thinking about it,” Unsworth explains, “and then spent a long time struggling, trying to work out how, precisely, I was going to manage it or quite how to make a start.

“I knew what I wanted to do, sort of, but not exactly how to do it, so one day alarmingly close to the deadline I did a fun thing: I freewheeled through Google. Using a small document about Zambian myths and cultures I found online (I set the story in Zambia for no reason other than an old family friend lives there and it seemed exotic in Gothic terms), I used one Zambian word from it as a search term and read what came up, took one intriguing Zambian term from the search results and searched for that, etc, and disappeared into Google’s merry depths.

“I ended up with an academic paper about a particular myth, a travel blog about a sort of beer made from corn and a weird little ‘my God’s better than your God’ blog by a kid in Africa, and somewhere in the middle of that, the story appeared.”

 

 

THE HEAT WAS like a brick.

Thorley had never seen shadows like it; they seemed edged in gold and darker at their centre than pitch. Even indoors, they pooled at his feet like glorious ink, gathering around his ankles and under the tables in the chibuku tavern. They even reflected themselves in the sweat that gathered on the brow of Chilongo, Thorley’s companion seated on the other side of the table. . .