Simon Bestwick

Simon Bestwick’s story Dermot features in a Black Static magazine from last year, #24. It concludes with an encounter in a police cell which for personal reasons struck a tender nerve. You think you have these fears, born and bred along with you, and then you hear another writer talk or you read another writer write, and they bump it all on up to higher levels of fret, certifying your concerns. You walk away thinking well thanks a lot for scaring the pants off me, how much do I owe you for the privilege? In the past it’s been said on here that horror is the mother genre because it can have everything, lightness shines brighter in the dark and all that sweet n sour stuff, but when the horror sticks to horror and that horror is a credible horror, only hinted at beyond local shadows instead of being thrust down your throat behind a cheap mask and fake blood (cue teenage screaming), then sometimes you question what the hell kind of a genre you have your face buried in. Perhaps the Holy Bible would be better—a form of prescription reading, for healing, perhaps. Any Jehovah's Witness pamphlets knocking about? A copy of The Watchtower? Anything?

Simon has interesting thoughts on what may lurk inside the woodshed, so to speak, although when it comes down to far-out beliefs, even he chuckles at the idea of certain individuals ‘morphing into velociraptors’. He has, aside from unsettling imaginings about the inner workings of fictional police stations, some keen related observations on conspiracy theories. He brought to light something along the lines of this: It is more debilitating for the human mind to see no pattern where there is one rather than create a pattern where there isn’t.

Horror IS NOT the best genre...didn't you know? 
CROSS-GENRE is the best genre.