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Dead Ground
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| Edition | Our Price inc. p&p | Status |
| first edition trade paperback, 227pp, ISBN 1903468019, 2002 | UK only: £11.49 | in stock |
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A dark fantasy set in the South Pacific, with echoes of the dark worlds of H.P. Lovecraft.
Dead Ground is the terrain you can't see. It's marked that way on a map because the mapmakers couldn't see into it. Dead Ground is the ghost space inside our heads. The bit where the monsters are real.
The Condals are the smallest of the Pacific island groups, a few hundred miles south of the sea lanes; the back end of the British Empire. Now an archaeological expedition is here to open a mysterious structure sacred to Taharoa, the Sea God of the islanders. Even before they begin, people start dying. Museum conservator Allan Delmar discovers the writings of a reclusive former schoolmaster which speak of terrible things that happened in the islands centuries ago, and which he says will happen again. Only the long-awaited hero Roho will save the islands. But who is Roho?
Sun, sea, palm trees and a modern feel of imperial exhaustion and decline which merges seamlessly into the much darker forces at work.
The author
Chris Amies graduated from the Central London Polytechnic with a BA in Modern Languages (French and Spanish). He later spent some time teaching English in Greece, and now works in Publicity and Communications for the British Civil Service, all of which in some curious way seems appropriate for the author of a novel set in the far-flung reaches of the Empire.
In what would otherwise be spare time he maintains web sites for several voluntary organisations in the West London area, writes stories on a handheld computer (useful in pubs and cafes), and goes walking and cycling at weekends. He is fond of gardening but at present does not have a garden.