And don't even get me started on "live" albums...

Gary Fry, author of such wonderful books as THE IMPELLED and SANITY & OTHER DELUSIONS, was kind enough after reading his copy of BENEATH THE SURFACE to publish his thoughts on the thing to the Ramsey Campbell Message Board. Thankfully, it's a positive review, and Gary intuits much of what my fiction intends to do. It also mentions the perceived focus of my fiction and how it all works together toward my world-view. He's not the first reviewer to mention this, and as of late I find myself a bit worried by it.

Over time, I've found I've less and less to say in the style of the stories in my first collection, yet I also feel somewhat like maintaining the work-view in them is expected of me. What will happen, then, when my next collection arrives and it's not the same? I've compared these first two collections of mine — BENEATH THE SURFACE and COLD TO THE TOUCH — to rock band releases; the former is a 'concept album' where the later is a 'greatest hits'. What I mean by that is that each story in BTS may not be the best tale I've written, but the book as a cumulative effect and tells its own story, in a way. The fiction in CTTT however is individually much stronger, yet the work does not tie together in the same way. The first is a collection of stories, the second a group of stories collected.

So my fear (if that's not too strong a word) is that those that have read the first book will expect something as thematically consistent with the second, and if they don't get it the book will be considered a failure ... regardless of whether the individual pieces are stronger or not.

I suppose I'll know soon enough what happens with the second collection. I'm close to finishing what I hope will be the last tale included in the book. Then, its publisher and I are on the long road to editing and printing the thing. Who knows what the future will hold for it, but I've got my fingers crossed my baby's birth is a major event. It will be for me, at least.