Mammoth Books presents Lethal Legends : Four short stories by Michael Kelly, Simon Kurt Unsworth, Mark Valentine and Terry Dowling

THE WOODS - Michael KellyMichael Kelly reveals "e;The Woods' was written for an anthology seeking regional horror and ghost stories. I'd just read Hemingway's 'Hills Like White Elephant's'. Now, in no way am I comparing myself to Hemingway but I wanted to write a similarly brief tale, with only two main characters, and where the horror was off-stage. As well, the setting had to be distinctly Canadian. What, I thought, could be more Canadian than the frozen north and allusions to mythical beasts?"e; MAMI WATA - Simon Kurt UnsworthUnsworth reveals, "e;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, 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."e;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."e;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."e;THE AXHOLME TOLL - Mark Valentine"e;In the following story, the book called The MS. in a Red Box really exists,"e; the author reveals. "e;All of the legends about the Isle, and about Beckett's assassins, are also genuine, except (so far) that of the Toll, and their final place of rest - or unrest."e;TWO STEPS ALONG THE ROAD - Terry Dowling"e;Two Steps Along the Road' came out of a conversation with US editor Danel Olson,"e; Dowling explains, "e;where we discussed me doing a ghost story set in Vietnam for Exotic Gothic 3, and the interesting possibilities it might provide for delivering atmosphere and an interesting perspective on familiar things."e;Before I knew it, I was blending two separate elements that were demanding attention: the notion of a root-form behind all hauntings, regardless of what form they took, and the unnerving realization that the eyes of a quite attractive teaching colleague would be truly terrifying to behold if they were set just a tad closer together."e;The ideas were intended for very different stories but, as so often happens, they decided they were meant for each other."e;