Wild Stacks

Wild Stacks online magazine is published by The Alchemy Press and is edited by:

Peter Coleborn, editor & publisher

Assistant editors:

Jenny Barber

Debbie Bennett

Mike Chinn

Jan Edwards

About the Alchemy Press:

In the late 1990s The Alchemy Press published its first title, The Paladin Mandates by Mike Chinn. This slim book was a heady mix of pulp fiction: dollops of The Scorpion, The Shadow and Dominic Fortune. In addition, Chinn's love of old planes and old-fashioned story telling all added to create a series of pulp heroics at its best.

The Alchemy Press then joined forces with Aigdlamh Publications to produce two titles: Shadows of Light and Darkness and Where the Bodies are Buried.

Shadows is a collection of poems by award-winning poet Jo Fletcher. The book was published in 1998 in a limited edition of 250 copies, signed by Fletcher, Neil Gaiman (introduction), Les Edwards (front cover artwork), Seamus A Ryan (back cover photograph) and Michael Marshall Smith (book designer).

Bodies is a collection of four interconnecting stories by Kim Newman, published in 2000 as a signed limited edition hardcover. The book won the British Fantasy Award for Best Small Press publication. "Meet Rob Hackwill, folk demon. A blackmailer killed by his victims, returning to expose what they are really made of. Or so the script goes. But then Hackwill slithers out of film into reality. Where the Bodies Are Buried is a heady brew of pulp horror, political satire and twisted technology. These four stories deconstruct the myths of the late twentieth centry -- with a hatchet. Prepare to laugh. Prepare to shudder. Prepare to find out Where the Bodies Are Buried."

Also in 2000 The Alchemy Press joined forces with Saladoth Productions to publish Swords Against the Millennium, edited by Mike Chinn. Available in two editions (signed limited and paperback), this anthology demonstrated that heroic fantasy fits the short story format as well as novel length -- stories in the tradition of Robert E Howard, Jack Vance, Fritz Leiber, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Michael Moorcock. Swords included stories by Ramsey Campbell, Simon R Green, Stan Nicholls, Joel Lane and many others.

The final Alchemy Press title (so far) was Beneath the Ground, edited by Joel Lane. This aclaimed anthology included thirteen stories of the mystery and terror that wait beneath the ground. Here are tales that explore the transition between our world and the tunnels and mines beneath. Tales that reveal what creatures dwell far from the light of day. And tales that explore the far reaches of human destiny in the unlit land of the dead. Prepare yourself to take the first steps ... beneath the ground.

Cover art by Bob Covington