About Storm
About Storm
Weaver of Dreams
Storm Constantine has written stories all her life. Her interests have always lain in the realms of the fantastical, but she was influenced by the mythology of Ancient Egypt and Greece more than by contemporary fantasy writing. After beginning - and never completing - several full-length works, in 1985 Storm began work on the first of her Wraeththu novels The Enchantments of Flesh and Spirit. This was completed in 1986, and submitted to Futura Macdonald, who accepted it for publication.
Although characters in the Wraeththu novels inhabited a fantasy world, they were drawn from real people who were part of the alternative night-club/music scene of the mid-eighties. The Wraeththu are androgynes - male and female in one body - which mirrored the way people seemed in the alternative scene at the time, very androgynous. In writing the Wraeththu books, Storm was determined to destroy the typical image of fantasy literature, of having cardboard characters and derivative plots. She was interested in exploring the concepts of gender and sexuality, which resulted in the books being seen as ground-breaking science fiction/fantasy. Storm herself, however, wishes her work was not rigidly categorised into a genre.
‘I wouldn’t go so far as to say my work is utterly mainstream, but neither do I see it as straight science fiction or fantasy. I like to think my books appeal to more than hard-core science fiction fans. Letters received by my information service show that a great number of readers have been led to the genre by my work - people who would not normally read SF or fantasy.’ (1995)
The reason for this perhaps stems from Storm’s feeling that it is very important for different media to intermingle; writing with music with art with film. She worked with bands extensively in the 80s and 90s, either as an illustrator or contributing written work, such as when her work appeared on the sleeve of Fields of the Nephilim’s albums, ‘Earth Inferno’ and their retrospective collection ‘Revelations’. Publicity resulting from her working with, and managing, bands attracted a new audience to her novels.
‘I wanted exposure in music/media magazines like The Face and 20/20, not purely in magazines like Interzone or Starburst, who cater exclusively for SF fans.’ (1991)
The Enchantments of Flesh and Spirit
was published in 1987, initially in hardback, and was later followed by the concluding volumes of the Wraeththu series: The Bewitchments of Love and Hate
and The Fulfilments of Fate and Desire. During 1988/89, Storm formed The Thirteenth Key project, which comprised a group of writers, artists and musicians, who together produced a magazine, video, and a soundtrack of music to accompany the video, all loosely based on the Wraeththu concept. The video Scrying of Continuum, was shown at SF conventions in 1989, and the magazine, Paragenesis, and the tape, Eyespeech, were sold by mail order.
In 1990, Macdonald/Orbit published Storm’s fourth book The Monstrous Regiment
- a departure from the territory of Wraeththu, although still, as her editor once put it, “quintessential Storm”. Aleph, a sequel to The Monstrous Regiment, appeared in 1991. This year also saw Storm moving publishers, to Headline, which Storm saw as a major step forward in her career. Her new publishers were more open to her ideas concerning the packaging and promotion of her work, which she felt was a major contribution to the success of Hermetech, her first novel with Headline. Also published in 1991, the book was lavishly produced with magnificent cover artwork and interior illustrations by Carl McCoy of Fields of the Nephilim. The mass market paperback edition went into reprint before publication date on the strength of advance orders. Hermetech
was described in a review in Interzone magazine as ‘a decorative return to Wraeththu territory... a mythic journey replete with picturesques, grotesques and poisoned earth elegy... Storm Constantine handles her cyber-goth jargon - and its loopy New Age applications - with great aplomb.’
In 1991, Storm took on the management of the band ‘Empyrean’, which enhanced her profile in the music world. New fans were drawn to her written work because of this, and her information service was inundated with requests from music fanzines for interviews with Storm. In between managing the band and writing full-length novels, Storm also completed many short stories, which appeared in magazines such as The Gate and Weird Tales (in the US.), and anthologies such as New Worlds, Zenith 1 and 2, Digital Dreams and Temps. February 1992 saw the publication of Storm’s second novel with Headline, Burying the Shadow. This was a reinvention of the vampire myth, incorporating mythology from Paradise Lost
and the Nephilim legends. A reviewer in Starburst magazine commented: ‘Storm Constantine’s writing evokes a sense of unearthly wonder, beauty and poetic aristocratic poise.’
Storm’s next book, Sign for the Sacred, was published in February 1993. It explored the complexities and manias of religion, and focused on the antics of a maverick prophet, who might be a master magician or a complete fake.
‘This novel is really about people’s obsessions with superstars, how these cultural icons are created. A myth builds up around a look, yet the person inside it, the object of everyone’s interest, is invariably far different to how they’re perceived. In most cases, they’re a lot more dull! The prophet in Sign for the Sacred, Resenence Jeopardy, is shown mainly through the other characters’ recollections of him. It isn’t until the end of the book that the reader actually meets him themselves.’ (1993)
Storm’s ninth novel, Calenture, was published in April 1994. It is a lush story of exotic lands, surreal journeys, complete with moving cities, and is based on a short story, called 'Priest of Hands' that appeared in Interzone magazine. In this year, Storm changed publishers again, moving to Penguin’s new imprint, Creed/Signet, which specialised in dark fantasy. Editor Luigi Bonomi commissioned from Storm a new dark fantasy series, The Grigori Trilogy. The first volume, Stalking Tender Prey
was published in November 1995, and the second book, Scenting Hallowed Blood, appeared in November 1996. The final volume, Stealing Sacred Fire, was published in 1997. The trilogy is based upon the legends of the Grigori, the fallen angels, which Storm used as inspiration for Burying the Shadow, and is set in the contemporary world. The short story, 'A Change of Season', which was published in Roz Kaveney’s The Weerde anthology, served as inspiration, and part of it appears in the opening chapters of the book.
When the band Storm managed, Empyrean, broke up in 1996, she directed her spare time into creating the fiction collective, ‘Visionary Tongue’ with co-editor Louise (Eloise) Coquio. Recruiting a number of professional friends and colleagues, Storm wanted to evolve a regular small press fiction magazine aimed at promoting and encouraging new talent. Storm and Louise published 13 editions of the magazine before passing custodianship of it to Jamie Spracklen. In 1999, Storm co-wrote a book on the feline deities of Ancient Egypt with Louise. Bast and Sekhmet: Eyes of Ra was published by Robert Hale in December 99 and is still in print, going strong. Storm and Louise plan to release a 20th anniversary edition very soon, with updated material. Also in 1999, as well as seeing the release of her slipstream novel Thin Air
from Warner Books, the long-awaited The Thorn Boy
from Eidolon in Australia, and the first of a fantasy trilogy from Gollancz, called Sea Dragon Heir, Stark House Press in the States published a collection of her short stories called The Oracle Lips.
I think The Magravandias Chronicles are, from a technical point of view at least, among the best novels I've written. They are Grimdark, before that was even a sub-genre. I wanted to create a real, gritty world of intrigue and greedy politics, where families vied for power and murdered wherever and whenever they could get away with it. And when they couldn't get away with it, starting a war was always an option. Unfortunately, my trilogy didn't make it onto the small screen as a massively successful run of series, unlike some other books of that nature! It was a bit before it's time perhaps.
- Storm Constantine, 2019
In 2000, Storm collaborated on a fantasy novel with Michael Moorcock, called Silverheart, (Simon and Schuster) and the second part of her Magravandias Chronicles, The Crown of Silence
was published by Gollancz in the UK and TOR in the US, followed in 2002 by The Way of Light.
In 2003, Storm sold a new Wraeththu trilogy to TOR in the States, but found herself in the position of many other established writers in the UK, in that she couldn’t find a publisher willing to take on her new work. With the advent of Print on Demand, a new printing technology, it had become far more viable for new small presses to establish themselves, so Storm decided to launch Immanion Press, in order to publish her back catalogue novels throughout the world and her new work in the UK. Once word of this got around, writer friends of Storm asked if she’d be interested in publishing some of their back catalogue titles too, and then new writers got to hear about it and the submissions started pouring in. So Immanion Press grew to be rather more than Storm first imagined it. The second Wraeththu trilogy, comprising The Wraiths of Will and Pleasure, The Shades of Time and Memory, and The Ghosts of Blood and Innocence, was published through Immanion Press in the UK. Storm found that the creative freedom associated with being her own publisher made her very reluctant to try and seek a major publisher again. She now releases her work exclusively through Immanion Press. Since 2003, when the press was initiated, Storm has published another Wraeththu trilogy, (The Alba Sulh Sequence), seven collections of her short stories, five non-fiction titles and five Wraeththu Mythos collaborations with other writers. She continues to publish non-fiction by other writers and herself through Megalithica Books, an imprint of Immanion Press specialising in the occult and esoteric.
The Alba Sulh Sequence started as a bit of fun. In the early 2000s, there was a Wraeththu fan chat room called The Stone Inn that met every week. I used to drop in from time to time, to answer questions and generally chat about Wraeththu. I was once asked what Wraeththu sex was actually like. In the books, I use a lot of euphemism and metaphor. I said, 'So you're asking me for a Wraeththu porn novel?' The answer, mostly jokingly, was yes. So I wrote the novella 'The Hienama' which leaves no one in any doubt about the mechanics of Wraeththu intimacy. However, the book took on its own life, became darker than I first envisaged (when do stories not!) and became the first of a series. In the first volume, the Hienama of the title, Ysobi, initiates an unwise affair with a mentally damaged student who comes to him for magical teaching. Terrible consequences ensue. In the second volume, that student, Gesaril, takes up the story. He's been exiled from his home by then and sent to the scholarly city of Kyme. But the past isn't done with him. That novel really is a cruel, twisted story. I didn't want it to be that way, but it had a mind of its own and insisted. The character of Gesaril, who is horribly messed up anyway, became more obsessive and weird. Fortunately, my muse (or committee of muses, as I tend to imagine them), went easier on me for the third volume. 'The Moonshawl' is one of my favourite Wraeththu novels. In this story, Ysobi is the narrator. He's left his past behind and takes on work in what used to be Wales. Here, the land is soaked in dark memories and vengeful ghosts. I wanted to write a Wraeththu ghost story, and my muses co-operated entirely. - Storm Constantine, 2019
Continuing the Wraeththu Mythos, Storm has since published 'A Raven Bound with Lilies', (2017), which is all of her Wraeththu short stories to date, including a lot of very old, fragmented material she polished up and finished to include in the collection. One of the stories, 'Song of the Cannibals' was meant to go in that book, but as can happen so often, when Storm was finishing it, the tale took the bit between its teeth and insisted on galloping off, expanding as it ran. This became the first of three connected novellas, published as 'Blood, the Phoenix and a Rose' in 2016. It explores the early history of Wraeththu and takes the reader into the dark heart of Fulminir, the Varr leader Ponclast's citadel.
In 2011, Storm started working with legendary fantasy writer, Tanith Lee, through publishing a series of her slipstream novels, known as
The Colouring Books. This was the start of a creative relationship that lasted until Tanith's death in 2015. Storm now works with Tanith's husband, the artist/sculptor John Kaiine, to preserve Tanith's legacy, for future generations of readers and also the writers who can learn from her. Immanion Press is dedicated to republishing Tanith's work that is no longer in print.
Storm is currently working on new fiction and non-fiction books, as well as working with other writers through Immanion Press. She lives with her husband, Jim Hibbert, and four cats, in the Midlands of the UK.
