New novel compared to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and Boccaccio’s Decameron

DARTFORD, U.K. - April 25, 2014 - PRLog -- Elsewhen Press, an independent UK publisher specialising in Speculative Fiction, is delighted to announce that we will be publishing the next novel by UK author Dave Weaver.

Simon, a traveller with time to kill before continuing his journey, enters an inn on the outskirts of London. Inside he meets a motley crew competing to tell tales for their own amusement. So starts Dave Weaver’s new novel, The Black Hole Bar, which has already been compared to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and Boccaccio’s Decameron. But these raconteurs are not pilgrims, nor are they hiding from a plague – Simon is on his way by rocket to Titan, rather than on horseback to Canterbury; the tavern is the Black Hole Bar, although being high up on Level Five of Docklands Spaceport it isn’t too far from Southwark; the tales are not told by a knight, squire, nun, merchant, clerk, parson, franklin or manciple, but by a programmer, advertising copywriter, dancer, financier, customs officer, marine biologist, sports star, and port worker.

Simon has stumbled into what was supposed to be a closed session for the Black Hole Bar Writers’ Group, who meet once a month to take part in a short story competition. As an interesting way to spend his last Earth night and forget his troubles for a few hours, this is perfect. Simon writes stories too and he’s been looking for a set-up like this for some time. Begrudgingly they let him participate. The stories begin, and Simon starts taking the competition far more seriously than he intended.

Each of the bar’s denizens tells two stories, stories that are variously strange, amusing and occasionally downright scary.  The writers all have their own histories to impart, lives crossed by tragedy and drama come tumbling out one by one into the cramped little room and as they do so, we, the invisible uninvited presence at Simon’s side, learn more about the background of this future world: its wars, its governments, its strange new customs and social groupings.  A world which is at the same time recognisable as our possible future but also chilling in its recent past.

As the night progresses personalities clash, secrets are disclosed, and friendships made. And Simon finds himself slowly but surely falling in love. But he still has a date with Titan to keep. It’s getting late, very late, and he should leave... but the competition has yet to conclude. Simon’s heart tells him to stay but his head says go, now, before it’s too late and you lose everything. How will his own tale end...?

The Black Hole Bar will be published later this year by Elsewhen Press in both digital and print editions.

Notes for Editors

About Dave Weaver

Ever since, as a boy, Dave Weaver first watched invading Daleks trundle across London Bridge in grainy BBC monotone, thrilled to Doctor Quatermass’ discovery of Martian corpses buried deep in the London Underground and read about mankind’s tenuous grip on existence being almost wiped out by marauding Triffids, he has loved science fiction, particularly the British variety.

A graphic designer by day, Dave has been writing by night for over a decade. With numerous short stories published in anthologies and webzines, he has had two novels published by Elsewhen Press. Although much of his writing hovers on the shifting borders between fantasy and reality, science fiction has never been far away. After years of creating his own future-scapes of flawed space exploration, dystopian visions and time-warped analogies, Dave has his own tales to tell of future worlds and fantastic revelations. He firmly believes that the seeds of the future are all around us; it’s not as far away or different as we might like to think.

Contact details:

Elsewhen Press contact: Al Murray

Information about Elsewhen Press, authors and titles can be obtained online from http://elsewhen.co.uk

Interviews with authors can be arranged through Elsewhen Press, contact Al Murray.

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