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This is where John will speak a little bit about his career and where myself and others will wax lyrical about our favourite John Burke novels/short stories. If you would like to share your thoughts on any of John's books - send an email to talesofunease@gmail.com.

I was lucky enough to be a regular on the Pan list in its most formative years. I made a speciality of 'novelisations' of film and TV scripts, and had a contract to do at least four over a period of nine years, including Till Death Do Us Part, Dr Terrors House of Horrors, and the paperback of the Beatles film A Hard Days Night, not one of my finest literary achievements, but which sold a million and a quarter copies here and in the US.

My first contribution to the Pan Horrors (Party Games) also appeared in a hardback edition in the US and UK edited by Alfred Hitchcock called Stories Which Have Scared Even Me, which was then taken up by Pan as a paperback publication, which meant that Pan had to pay me twice over!

Other contributions I made in the field of weird fiction were to seven of the Barrie and Jenkins Ghost Book, five of which also came out in Pan paperback. And then I was commissioned by Weidenfield, with US rights going to Coward McCann to write three stories about Victorian Psychics, beginning with Devils Footsteps. (The Black Charade and Ladygrove are books two and three in the series.) All three of them went into paperback in both countries.

At lunch one day I suggested to Pan the idea of a volume called Tales of Unease - not outright horror or ghost stories, but basically stories which just made you...well, uneasy. I was sure that there were many good writers who had written, or wanted to write, just such a story for which there was no obvious striaghtforward market. They agreed to it, and the book was a great success, with a hard-cover and paperback in the States. We went on to two more volumes - More Tales of Unease and New Tales of Unease. I worked as a story editor on a seven-episode of The Frighteners, each story specially commisioned - a frenetic few months, I remember.

copyright - John Burke 2008

The Entity Strikes Twice was written under the name Jonathan Burke and appears in an Australian edition of his works called Exodus from Elysium which features three short stories and a novella which carries the title name. Even though Entity is a science fiction piece it wouldn't have been out of place in his own Tales of Unease or any of the popular horror anthologies that were around at the time.

It concerns the Sneddons, who are desperately concerened about their child Marion who is going to sleep at night then not being able to wake up for at least two days. And when Marion finally does wake up, she initially struggles to recognise her parents - 'and you', said Marion, with that particularly earnest, enquiring note in her voice that we knew so well, 'who are you?'

A week later the same thing happens, and even though the doctor wants to take the child into hospital, Marion's mother refuses. This time when she wakes up, she tells about a town where there's no dirt or noise...no fools. We all know one and other and we are all part of the same life. Elaborating further, Marion gives the impression of having a mental understanding and vocabulary way above her ten years of age.

Marion recovers again and she is sent to school where her behaviour slips, she ridicules her best friend which is just unheard of and the teacher gets in touch with the parents because before, she was quite a child of nominal understanding, but now she is probably the most brilliant and intelligent children the teacher has ever seen.

Marions father realises all too late that an entity has taken over his childs body, with his childs identity transported to the body of the being from another planet - a planet which is dying very rapidly indeed. Mr Sneddon realises that if he doesn't take action, the world will be populated with these alien beings. But his wife takes action first. With devatating consequences...

**

The Entity Strikes Twice was the first ever science fiction work I had ever read of John's and the description of the Mr Sneddon's decent into paranoia and desperation when he realises that aliens are preparing to take over the Earth is written very clearly and consicely. I've never been the biggest fan of Sci-Fi, but one of the reasons that I like John's writing is that it doesn't feel like it. It may be set in the year whenever - but the writing such that you could attatch the year 1958, 2008 or 2058 to the tale and you would still get along with it.

And while the main brutality of the piece happens half-way through, by the time you get to the end John manages to end the tale with poignancy, that this was going to happen no matter what, and not Mr Sneddon or anyone else could stop it. Excellent read, and well worth tracking down.