As well as writing on technology and business issues, Tim Chapman has dabbled in fiction and creative non-fiction. Here’s his currently available books.
Haunts of the Halifax Slasher
Psychogeography / history / true crime
In autumn 1938, the Yorkshire town of Halifax was plunged into panic by the attacks of an unseen assailant known only as the Halifax Slasher.
Women were cut with razors. Right-thinking men patrolled the streets. Strangers were beaten up. It was two weeks of terror of a kind unknown since the days of Jack the Ripper.
But in 1938, the verdict was mass hysteria: the Halifax Slasher simply never existed.
Haunts of the Halifax Slasher, originally published in 2005 and long out of print, is an acclaimed psychogeographic exploration of the key sites of the panic. It delves into the town’s history from the middle ages to the early 21st century, and weaves a path through myth, fact and fiction.
This expanded edition includes a bonus essay revisiting the old haunts 15 years on, new photographs capturing the town’s unique atmosphere, and more.
“I read this volume in one sitting and would recommend it highly. The author does a great job weaving history both before and after the main story into the main narrative.” – Amazon reviewer.
Blue Shift
Science fiction / comedy / novel
Young astronomer Will Bonneman is drifting through his doctoral studies in the university city of Porteris. He’s investigating the large-scale movements of the universe, when he’s not losing himself in the city’s nocturnal delights of drink, drugs and dancing. He’s even more distracted when he falls for Eve, an anarchist protesting an increasingly authoritarian government and an escalating war on a distant island.
Eve’s gang of suburban art terrorists are talking about a revolution, but Will comes to realise that it’s his own work that could overthrow the old orthodoxies. His research hints at something disturbingly wrong with the universe – something that could demolish the foundations of cosmology, if only Will can prove it.
A constellation of dropouts and misfits orbit the pubs, clubs and tenements of Porteris, searching for meaning in sex, drugs, politics and fringe science – until a brutal act of repression brings their world crashing down. And from the wreckage, something new could emerge.
“How I’d imagine the result of a collaboration between Irvine Welsh and Greg Egan, or Niall Griffiths and Neal Stephenson.” – Amazon reviewer.
Buy the paperback or Kindle ebook on Amazon.
