THE BOOKS THAT MADE ME - GREIG BECK

Graham Masterton's The Manitou

It’s a good question – what book made me? What book shaped my tastes and sent me headlong into a frenzy of horror, adventure, myths and monsters?

Over the years I have nominated many books as being my favorites – The John Carter of Mars series, Jurassic Park, Campbell’s Who Goes There, Alien, The Time Machine and Koontz’s Phantoms. But a book that always stayed with me, and made me a fan of the writer forever was Charnel House by Graham Masterton.

---

This story, and Masterton’s earlier works such as The Manitou, has some of the most amazing and original terror scenes. An elderly man comes to the city sanitation department and delivers a great first line of dialogue – ‘It’s my house. It’s breathing.’ From there, we’re given a Native American demon, an underlying myth of eternal revenge, and some very horrifying scenes. It’s a short, but great read.

Many of Masterton’s stories grow from a legend, and this is what shaped my own writing, drawing on myths, legends and folklore. My next book, Gorgon, starts with a discovery of something that had been hidden deep below Istanbul by Emperor Constantine. Like Masterton, I let the reader discover what would it be like if these things from our dark past were actually real? What were they, and how would we deal with them today? I hope Graham would approve.

Gorgon by Greig Beck

An ancient evil awakens…


Alex Hunter has been found – sullen, alone, leaving a path of destruction as he wanders across America. Only the foolish get in the way of the drifter wandering the streets late at night.


Across the world, something has been released by a treasure hunter in a hidden chamber of the Basilica Cisterns in Istanbul. Something hidden there by Emperor Constantine himself, and deemed by him too horrifying and dangerous to ever be set free. It now stalks the land, leaving its victims turned to stone, and is headed on a collision course with a NATO base. The Americans can’t let it get there, but can’t be seen to intervene. There is only one option – send in the HAWCs.


But Alex and the HAWCs are not the only ones seeking out the strange being – Uli Borshov, Borshov the Beast, who has a score to settle with the Arcadian moves to intercept him, setting up a deadly collision of epic proportions where only one can survive. Join Alex Hunter as he learns to trust his former commander and colleagues again as the HAWCs challenge an age-old being straight from myth and legend.


GORGON will be available worldwide on 10 June 2014, where all good ebooks are sold. Pre-order now, and check out Greig’s other bestselling titles from Momentum:

---

Purchase a copy of Gorgo here