The Fallen West
Few writers can continuously span the chasms of prejudice that divide literary writing from science fiction and horror. The Fallen West unites Douglas Thompson’s mainstream poetry with his often outlandishly surreal short stories. The distorting mirrors of the tales focus on how the human condition oscillates between boredom and terror. The poems explore how the forces of decay and destruction in our lives are part of a continual cycle of the natural world. Troubled characters grapple with hidden openings into fantastical worlds. Their revelations are metaphors for the problems of our society at large, and for the state of heightened awareness essential for each of us to stay creatively alive.
Douglas Thompson
Douglas Thompson’s short stories have appeared in a wide range of magazines and anthologies, most recently Albedo One, Ambit, Postscripts, and New Writing Scotland. He won the Grolsch/Herald Question of Style Award in 1989 and second prize in the Neil Gunn Writing Competition in 2007. His first book, Ultrameta, was published by Eibonvale Press in August 2009, nominated for the Edge Hill Prize, and shortlisted for the BFS Best Newcomer Award, and since then he has published four subsequent novels, Sylvow (Eibonvale, 2010), Apoidea (The Exaggerated Press, 2011), Mechagnosis (Dog Horn, 2012), Entanglement (Elsewhen Press, 2012) and has two forthcoming in 2014, The Brahan Seer and Volwys, from Acair Publishing and Dog Horn respectively. The Rhymer is his eighth novel.
More books by Douglas Thompson
