Introduction to Sinophagia

It’s always great to hear how interesting and enlightening people have found the introductions to my anthologies, so I was delighted to have a version of it in Reactor. Here’s a taster:

I have always had an active imagination. I was the sort of child who would see all kinds of things in the indistinct shapes of the dark, and of course, I loved ghost stories.

One of my earliest memories of horror was watching the 1986 TV adaptation of Pu Songling’s famous Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio. Its opening titles, a single, dimly lit lantern, hovering unsteadily over a desolate nocturnal field, to the sound of ghostly, whispering wind, gave me unspeakable chills. During my childhood in Guangzhou, I would often visit Yuexiu Park, which housed a replica of the underworld scenes from the fantasy epic Journey to the West, meaning I could visit the grim scenes repeatedly. I remember really wanting to live in a cave like the White Bone Demon.

This fascination with fear is natural to us all. This emotion is one of the primal human urges, and whilst it is not one that everyone finds easy to face or admit, or even one that certain societies and cultures are comfortable presenting to the world, we need the ability to be afraid in order to truly know what it is to be brave, calm and safe. One of the things I appreciate in both the writers and readers of horror, is their willingness to face fear.

Read the rest here.

Of course, to read the full intro, the stories and my commentary,  you’ll need to buy the book!


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