Recent (Re-)Publications by Michael Butterworth

Michael Butterworth

Carter Kaplan has asked me to convey some words about a few recent publications on behalf of International Authors and Null23, which have collaborated to publish two new books by Michael Butterworth: Butterworth and My Servant the Wind.

I first became aware of Michael upon reading his contribution to the very first Emanations anthology way back in 2011, a short story titled "Das Neue Leben," whose opening line read as follows: "He stood five feet eight, and the anaconda, not yet full grown, slightly longer than that." Talk about a hook! I liked the story immensely and told Michael he should turn it into a novel. That hasn't happened yet, but we do now have other things by him to read.

Let's see what Carter (or is it Gareth Jackson?) says about these other writings:

Butterworth presents the collected short works [including "Das Neue Leben"] of the author Michael Butterworth - previously found in long-out-of-print anthology paperbacks and yellowing magazines such as New Worlds and other offshoots submerged by the accumulation of time, and which have been mostly lost and overshadowed by his later "Ecker" infamy as the co-publisher of the Northern provocateurs Savoy Books . . . These works are often located in a post-atomic wasteland of haunted deserts, conjoined with a dislocated Manchester of memory - being speculative fictions with veins of autobiography. The page becomes a structural space in which narrative is dismembered and arranged. Place becomes uncertain and hallucination is explored with thoughtful rigour. Neither of the future nor of then, these are works which occupy an era but conversely exist outside of any catalogued time.

My Servant the Wind: Navigating his story, there is nothing linear; autobiography becomes speculative memoir that crosses into fiction. In alien contacts the geography of the page disintegrates and time has become uncertain, located neither here nor there. The wind is blowing from the future deserts which he remembers from his youth. He is haunted by himself and memories of the apocalypse. He has travelled through new worlds and wild turbulence, protracted labour - a difficult birth. The wind blows a novel against his receiver and he transcribes . . .

Carter (Jackson?) also offers a bio of the man:

Michael Butterworth is a UK author, publisher and editor. He was a key part of the UK New Wave of Science Fiction in the 1960s, contributing fiction to New Worlds and other publications. He began publishing small press literary magazines, including Corridor in 1969, and in 1975 founded Savoy Books with David Britton. He co-authored Britton's controversial novel Lord Horror (1989), and in 2009 launched the contemporary visual art and writing journal, Corridor8. His last book was a memoir, The Blue Monday Diaries: In the Studio with New Order (2016). He is a regular contributor to Emanations.

Descriptions of the new books as well as links to respective Amazon sales pages can be found at the International Authors website:

International Authors

Here are links to Amazon, UK:

Butterworth

My Servant the Wind