Graham Joyce - Page 1
First British Edition Gollancz (2005) |
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The Limits of Enchantment
‘What they did to Mammy they tried to do to me. They released the dogs. And when it comes to telling how it was done, I only ask this: think how we few have held our tongues for so long. How we have choked back the truth. How we have burned in our hearts rather, than risk the telling.’
A story of old secrets and a new life.
A story of an extraordinary young woman coming of age in a small village in the 1960s.
If I could tell you this in a single sitting, then you might believe all of it, even the strangest part. If I could unwind this story in a single spool, or peel-it like an apple the way Mammy would with her penknife in one unbroken coil, juice a-glistening on the blade, then you might bite in without objection.
But Mammy always said we have lost the art of Listening. She said we live in an age when everyone chatters and no one takes heed, and that, she said, is not a good time in which to live. When you come to know the nature of the teller of this tale you may have good reason to doubt both. You may suspect the balance of my mind, and you may condemn my position. You may to disbelieve.
Perhaps I once was mad. Briefly. Perhaps that much is true. And this, in an age where we no longer have the patience to listen, may cause you to break off, to give up on me, to turn away. A young woman has so little of interest to offer, after all.
And when you feel most far from me, then at that moment listen hard. Not to your thoughts, which will mislead you, nor to your heart, which will lie, but to the voice behind the voice, and trust the tale and not the teller.
Praise for Graham Joyce
‘This is the kind of book I love to read I have not been so charmed by a novel in a long time’ Isabel Allende on The Facts of Life
`The flipside of Alex Garland’s The Beach. Vividly imagined . . . a sure narrative touch’ The Times
A superlative novel’ SFX
A beautifully written and powerful work of fiction. Compelling and deeply unsettling’ Vector
A wonderful achievement by one of the UK’s best writers’ SF. Revu
`One of the finest writers in the field . . . The finest novel of his career’ Locus
`Graham Joyce writes the kind of novels we keep hoping to find, but rarely do’ Jonathan Carroll
`Brilliantly original’ Sunday Times
`Smoking Poppy is quite simply a beautifully written and powerful work of fiction’ Vector
`Superb’ SFX
`Simply one of the finest writers around. Full stop!’ SF Revu
`One of Britain’s best writers at the peak of his powers’ The Third Alternative
`Joyce’s characterisation is superb. Wonderful and at times hilarious’ Starburst
`I became a rabidly dedicated fan of Graham Joyce’s the first time I read his work’ Peter Straub
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First British Edition Gollancz (2002) |
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The Facts of Life
Graham Joyce Has Won The British Fantasy Society Best Novel Award An Unprecedented Four Times.
The Facts of Life tells the story of the Vines, an extraordinary family of seven sisters living in Coventry during, and after, the second world war.
Presided over by an indomitable matriarch the sisters live out tangled and fraught lives built on loyalty and betrayal, love and frustration, fear and hope. Lives informed by family wisdom and sometimes harsh tradition.
From the hallucinatory horror of the night the Luftwaffe levelled Coventry, via the everyday tensions of a family just scraping through in wartime, to a bizarre interlude in a post-war communist collective, this is an evocative and affecting story of lives lived to the full.
And through it all wanders the young son of the youngest daughter. Never knowing his father he is passed from sister to sister. Frank is the innocent witness to a life that edges over from war into peace and from the mundane into the magical and the fey.
| Paperback - Gollancz (2002) |
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First British Edition Gollancz (2001) |
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Smoking Poppy
Oh that Charlie of mine, how I wanted her back.
Danny Innes is the wrong side forty, he’s estranged from his wife, his kids have grown up and he’s lonely and bitter. But you never stop being a father.
So when his wife rings him up with the news that their daughter, Charlotte, is in jail in Thailand on drug smuggling charges, Danny goes out to bring her home.
But wherever Danny goes he is haunted, his every footstep dogged by ghosts from the past and fears for the future.
Once he arrives at Chiang Mai jail Danny discovers only a mystery. And soon he is following the faintest of trails, up into the mist shrouded jungle uplands of the Myanmar border area. And in a land of opium, vicious drug gangs and spirit-haunted villages finds his daughter. And some painful truths.
Smoking Poppy is a book about fatherhood. It’s about love and redemption. It’s about opium. And it’s about the kind of demons you don’t recognise until they are standing next to you.
Graham Joyce is an international bestseller and, uniquely, a four times winner of the British Fantasy Award for Best Novel.
Leningrad Nights: Binary 1
'Leningrad Nights is one of those works of fiction that seems to arrive unmediated from a space located at an oblique angle slightly above the earth's surface. Graham Joyce uses the novella's unique mixture of liberating length and liberating brevity to evoke a phantasmal, haunted version of Leningrad.' Peter Straub
'A dystopian vision of a city under siege. Apocalyptic stuff - writing that takes the metaphors of the old Testament and gives them the most literal of lives' Daily Express
'Reads like a long-lost urban legend from The Great Patriotic War' SFSite.com
'A superb piece of work' Paul Brazier, Interzone
'Not only extremely well done from an artistic point of view, it's also morally uplifting - a good story in both senses’ Chris Gilmore, Interzone
'Hard, beautiful and thoroughly engaging, this novella explores the horror of real life, life at its extreme bending the mind to new realities and perceptions' Michael Rowley, Waterstones
| Paperback - Dolphin (1997) |
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Spiderbite
THE WEB
SUIT UP, HIT THE ACCESS CODE AND ...
BE WHO YOU WANT TO BE GO PLACES YOU WON'T BELIEVE
BUT BE PREPARED TO PAY THE PRICE ...
The year: 2027. The place: everywhere. In 2027 a lot of schooltime is Webtime. Imagine entering virtual reality and creeping through the Labyrinth with the roars of the Minotaur echoing in your ears? Nowhere near as dull as the classroom. The sites are open to all, nothing is out of bounds. So why has Conrad been warned off the Labyrinth site? There shouldn't be any secrets in Edutainment.
Who is behind the savage spiders that swarm around Conrad whenever he tries to enter the site? And why do none of his friends see them? There is a dark lesson being taught at the centre of the
Labyrinth...
About The Author
Graham Joyce is a full-time writer and lives in Leicester. He has previously written adult fantasy books, which have received much critical acclaim. Of these, Dark Sister won the British Fantasy Best Novel Award for 1993, and Requiem was shortlisted for the World Fantasy Best Novel Award and won the British Fantasy Best Novel Award in 1995. He also runs Creative Writing courses for adults at Nottingham Trent University. He is married with two children. He has won the British Fantasy Award an unprecedented four times.
Bibliography
N.B. dates and publishers in dark red indicate British First Editions. Dates and publishers in black indicate recent reprints.
The Limits of Enchantment
(Gollancz,
2005)
Jan 05
The Facts of Life
(Gollancz,
2002)
Smoking Poppy
(Gollancz,
2001)
Gollancz Pbk Oct 02
Leningrad Nights: Binary 1
(Gollancz Millenium Pbk,
2000)
Spiderbite
(Orion,
1997)
Dolphin Pbk 1997
The Tooth Fairy
(Signet,
1996)
Gollancz Pbk Mar 02
The Limits of Enchantment
by Graham Joyce
