Stephen Laws (author)

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This article is about the writer. For the British lawyer and civil servant, see Stephen Laws.

Stephen Laws (born July 13, 1952) is an English author working mostly in the genres of horror and dark fantasy. He lives in Newcastle upon Tyne. A writer of novels and short stories, he is also an occasional reviewer, columnist, and film festival interviewer..

Early life

Asthmatic as a child and often bedridden in the winter months, Laws read and created stories as a means of escape. He attributes an early fascination with genre to his father’s dramatic re-telling of the plots of X-rated horror movies fresh in his mind from the evening before. Laws would later perform a similar storytelling service for school friends, recounting and sometimes embellishing the narratives of Hammer Horror films seen in local cinemas in youthful defiance of age restrictions.

Career

Stephen Laws left Manor Park Technical School at 16 to work in the Architects Department of Northumberland County Council, studying for professional qualifications in the evenings. He went on to work in local government as a committee administrator for twenty years, publishing his first novel in 1985 and becoming a full-time writer in 1992. He cites as early influences Nigel Kneale’s TV dramas and shows such as The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, and Doctor Who, but drew creative inspiration in his teenage years from the writing of Richard Matheson. Success in local writing competitions, along with frustration over a cancelled BBC drama commission, led to the writing of his debut novel Ghost Train, first published in 1985 by Souvenir Press. In this phase of his career Laws considers Peter Straub’s novel Ghost Story to be of significant influence. More novels and short fiction would follow, along with occasional reviews and magazine columns .

Laws is a practised onstage interviewer of guests and personalities at film festivals, and contributes introductions and critical matter to DVD and Blu Ray releases of classic genre material. He adapted and appears in a short film adaptation of his short story The Secret

Bibliography

Novels

• Ghost Train, Souvenir Press 1985
• Spectre, Souvenir Press 1986
• The Wyrm, Souvenir Press 1987
• The Frighteners, Souvenir Press 1990
• Darkfall, New English Library 1992
• Gideon, New English Library 1993
• Macabre, Hodder & Stoughton 1994
• Daemonic, Hodder & Stoughton 1995
• Somewhere South of Midnight, Hodder & Stoughton 1996
• Chasm, Hodder & Stoughton 1998
• Ferocity, Leisure Books/Dorchester Publishing 2007

Chapbook

• Annabel Says, with Simon Clark, The British Fantasy Society 1995

Collections

• The Midnight Man, Silver Salamander Press 2000

Stories

• "Ghost Train” (extract) (1986)
• "Guilty Party (1988)
• "Junk (1989)
• "The Secret (1989)
• "The Frighteners” (excerpt) (1990)
• "He Who Laughs” (1991)
• ”Gordy's A-Okay” (1991)
• "Bleeding Dry” (1992)
• "Pot Luck” (1993)
• "Deep Blue” (1994)
• "The Fractured Man” (1995)
• "Man Beast” (1995)
• "Black Cab” (1995)
• "Yesterday I Flew with the Birds” (1995)
• "Annabelle Says” (1995) with Simon Clark
• "The Crawl (1997)
• "The Song My Sister Sang” (1998)
• "The Penitent ”(1999)
• "Outrage” (2005)
• "The Causeway” (2006)
• "Stolen Blood” (2011)
• "Harbinger” (2013)
• "The Slista” (2014)
• "The End of the Pier” (2015)
• "The Swan Dive” (2017)
• "The Greek Widow” (2018)
• "Dead Man's Hand” (2018)
• "The Laundromat” (2018)
• "Get Worse Soon” (2018)
• "The True Colour of Blood” (2022)

Adaptations

• ”The Secret” Hydra-X Films 2012

External links

• Official website
• The Unforgotten Master of British Horror[4]
• Stephen Laws on the Internet Speculative Fiction Database|[5]

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