coldandalone v7 - simon logan - the home of industrial and fetishcore fiction

Pretty Little Things To Fill Up The Void is the story of four characters whose lives become inextricably linked over the course of the novel through a series of literally explosive events. The novel is rooted in the industrial style first realised in my short story collection I-O, set in an unnamed city of run-down warehouses and chemical factories. Skaters, punks, terrorists and anarchists freely intermingle amidst this crumbling wastescape.

The story starts with an anonymous suicide bomber breaking into a chemical factory and blowing themselves up and then quickly moves on to Elisabeth Afterlife, guerilla filmmaker, as she begins to gather information for a new documentary she has begun work on. After the death of her lover, X., several months previously, she is back working for one the broadcast pirates that operate within the city, investigating the phenomenon of train riding - teenagers who cling to the side of moving locomotives to get a chemical rush.

As she gets further into the world of the train riders, she contacts Catalina Rodriguez, a teenage roach [industrial cleaner] and after getting past the girl's initial reluctance the two begin to bond. At the same time Elisabeth is being plagued by the ghost of a bloodied girl and a suspicion that Rodriguez might be involved in something much more serious than just train riding develops...

Meanwhile, underground artists Camille and Auguste's already shaky relationship is fracturing further as Camille's fears about her lover's infidelity deepen. She has to fight her own jealousies and self-destructive tendencies as she prepares for what will be her first solo exhibition, a chance to get out from under the shadow of Auguste's dominance and prove herself.

And alongside these rapidly-intertwining stories there is the mysterious Shiva, lurking in her complex of workshops, moving deviant chemical hands that will soon come to encompass all the characters in the story in one explosive point of singularity...

Pretty Little Things To Fill Up The Void is the story of five characters whose lives entangle with one another in ways that will change each and every one of them forever.

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Pretty Little Things To Fill Up The Void was written over a two year period from 2002-2004 and changed dramatically over the course of writing it. Originally I had started with an idea called "Machine" which I first developed several years ago about a group of individuals living within a city that are somehow entangled by a mysterious and vague machine that seems to control everything. I started to rework the various plot threads to integrate some of my more recent interests and themes but as things progressed I ended up almost entirely dropping the original plots and creating new ones to replace them.

Enter viruses, guerilla journalists, blood fetishes and suicide bombings ...

With the first draft complete I could see the themes of the work starting to emerge and streamlined everything in the second draft which I finished in 2004. Another quick polish then I started a search for an agent and/or publisher but received little interest. Prime Books have expressed an interest in publishing the work and the manuscript is currently in their hands although I am also continuing to search for an agent to represent the work to larger publishers..

To read some excerpts from the work you can click on the links on the right-hand side.