Burying The Shadow - Softcover

Constantine Storm

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0747279519 ISBN 13: 9780747279518

Publisher: Headline, 1992

Synopsis

A reinvention of the vampire myth.

About this title

About the Author:

Storm Constantine has written stories all her life. Her interests have always lain in the realms of the fantastical, but she was influenced by the mythology of Ancient Egypt and Greece more than by contemporary fantasy writing. After beginning—and never completing—several full-length works, in 1985 storm began work on the first of her Wraeththu novels The Enchantments of Flesh and Spirit. This was completed in 1986, and submitted to Futura MacDonald, who accepted it for publication.

Although characters in the Wraeththu novels inhabited a fantasy world, they were drawn from real people who were part of the alternative nightclub/music scene of the mid-eighties. The Wraeththu are hermaphrodites—male and female in one body—which mirrored the way people seemed at the time; very androgynous. In writing the Wraeththu books, Storm was determined to destroy the typical image of fantasy literature, of having cardboard characters and derivative plots. She was interested in exploring the concepts of gender and sexuality, which resulted in the books being seen as ground-breaking science fiction/fantasy. Storm herself, however, wishes her work was not rigidly categorized into a genre.

‘I wouldn’t go so far as say my work is utterly mainstream, but neither do I see it as straight science fiction or fantasy. I like to think my books appeal to more than hard-core science fiction fans. Letters received by my information service show that a great number of readers have been led to the genre by my work—people who would not normally read SF or Fantasy.

The reason for this perhaps stems from Storm’s feeling that it is very important for different media to intermingle; writing with music with art with film. She has always worked with bands, either as an illustrator or contributing written work, such as when her work appeared on the sleeve of Fields of the Nephilim’s albums Earth Inferno and their retrospective collection Revelations. Publicity resulting from her working with, and managing, bands attracted a new audience to her novels.

‘I wanted exposure in music/media magazines like The Face and 20/20, not purely in magazine like Interzone or Starburst, who cater exclusively for SF fans.’

The Enchantments of Flesh and Spirit was published in 1987, initially in hardback, and was later followed by the concluding volumes of the Wraeththu series: The Bewitchments of Love and Hate and The Fulfillments of Fate and Desire.

During 1988/89, Storm formed the Thirteenth Key project, which comprised a group of writers, artists and musicians, who together produced a magazine, video, and a soundtrack of music to accompany the video, all loosely based on the Wraeththu concept. The video Scrying of Continuum, was shown at SF conventions in 1989, and the magazine, Paragenesis, and the tape, Eyespeech, were sold to mail order.

In 1989, Vikki Lee France and Steve Jeffery formed the information service Inception, which in many respects continued the spirit of Thirteenth Key, and allowed fans to maintain a close contact with Storm’s working life. Inception, now in its eleventh year, continues to thrive, and produces two regular magazines, Inception, and An Occasional Axolotl. Storm contributes regularly to both zines. They also produce regular chap-books of Storm’s work, as in the poetry collection, Colurastes, and the illustrated short stories "Dancer for the World’s Death" and "An Elemental Tale."

In 1990, Macdonald/Orbit Published Storm’s fourth book The Monstrous Regiment—a departure from the territory of Wraeththu, although still, as her editor once put it, "quintessential Storm". Aleph, a sequel to The Monstrous Regiment, appeared in 1991.

1991 also saw Storm moving publishers, to Headline, which Storm saw as a major step forward in her career. Her new publishers were more open to her ideas concerning the packaging and promotion of her work, which she felt was a major contribution to the success of Hermetech, her first novel wit

About this edition

• Publisher: Headline
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0747279519
• ISBN 13: 9780747279518
• Binding: Paperback