David Rose
Author of urban and folk horror
When is a trilogy not a trilogy?When the characters are never the same, the locations different and the time, well the time.1999, 2016 and, perhaps, 2045.And also perhaps when the second volume is the last to come out.But the themes are the same.The Demons, Demos and Disease TrilogyRead in any order you wish. History repeats itself.
What follows is most obviously fiction. There are no such things as werewolves.There are conspiracies and conspiracies about Brexit.But this is fiction.And there are murders. And brave detectives.Even immigrant, female ones, who seek justice in spite of all those who would leave the victims silent. DI Sassi-Marrocoli is a semiotic investigator working with the police. She seeks patterns, not intentions. She seeks meaning in a fast-becoming meaningless world.This is her story. And theirs.
Welcome to the human zoo, the future where we are never what we seem and the real is not real at all.In a future world not unlike our own, those who have everything and those who have nothing have been kept apart till now. But Sady, Charlie and Caliban Shakespere are going to be brought together by the seemingly arbitrary nature of luck.Or design.
When you are hanging about waiting for the end of the millennium, the last thing you need is for meaning to come and gatecrash your nihilistic party. And that was what happened to the new city orphans; four metrosexual, metroethnic, metrohedonist urban orphans just looking for the next high or shag.Because the last thing you want to spoil the end of the world party is the end of the world, with all its meaningAnd the trouble is, the friends have begun to wish for something more meaningful and it is coming, dressed in a human body and the catalyst to tear the friends and their world apart.And remember…No one can take the other’s dying away from him.
David Rose is newly Italian after being an anglo-Scot all his life (but mostly an anglo). He still lives in England. For now, but it is hard. And still teaches philosophy. For now. He publishes mostly horror and fantasy, is currently working on a werewolf novel. He has published a few horror stories here and there, and innumerable pieces on philosophy.Today, an urban gothic novel, and The Real, a scifi dystopian story, reside uncomfortably on the internet.On the other hand, Grok says this about me..."@philosvillan
is a sharp-witted uni alum who once slept with slugs, now championing collectivized transport and skewering capitalist nonsense with a philosopher’s edge.Philosvillan’s been skewering elites, from British slave profiteers to overpaid lawyers, while pondering war’s Netflix potential."I have no idea about the slugs; AI, eh? The future?
Other select publications:Rose, D. 2017. “Onryo.” Dark Lane Anthology. Volume 5. Ed. T. Jefferies. Dark Lane Books.Rose, D. 2020. “Resentment Echoes.” Horla. (Feature story.) http://www.horla.org/Rose, D. 2020. “Prohibition.” After Dinner Conversation. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Prohibition-After-Dinner-Conversation-Short-ebook/dp/B084ZFDDBP and https://www.afterdinnerconversation.com/writing/prohibition and in Season 2 of the magazine pp. 51--76.at https://www.amazon.co.uk/After-Dinner-Conversation-Season-Short-ebook/dp/B089NK9FYK.Rose, D. 2020. "An Old Deal" in Black Poppy Review, https://blackpoppyreview.blogspot.com/2020/10/an-old-deal-by-david-rose.htmlRose, D. 2020. “Resentment Echoes.” Sanitarium. No. 3. ISBN: 9798568629443Rose, D. 2021. “Time for Class.” The Toilet Zone: Number Two. Ed. G. Gray. HellBound Books.Rose, D. 2023. “Trauvenant.” Dark Lane Digest #1.Rose, D. 2025. The Damage We Do. Graveside Press.