Kaaron Warren
Author of Slights
About the Author
Kaaron Warren is an Australian author who was a finalist in the 2015 World Fantasy Awards in the short fiction category for `Death's Door Café', which appeared in Shadows & Tall Trees 2014. (Bowker Author Biography)
Image credit: Alex Swan
Series
Works by Kaaron Warren
Dead Sea Fruit {short story} 1 copy
Associated Works
Queen Victoria's Book of Spells: An Anthology of Gaslamp Fantasy (2013) — Contributor — 399 copies, 18 reviews
The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror 2007: 20th Annual Collection (2007) — Contributor — 223 copies, 3 reviews
Christmas and Other Horrors: A Winter Solstice Anthology (2023) — Contributor — 213 copies, 9 reviews
Mad Hatters and March Hares: All-New Stories from the World of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland (2017) — Contributor — 144 copies, 11 reviews
Screams from the Dark: 29 Tales of Monsters and the Monstrous (2022) — Contributor — 100 copies, 2 reviews
Evil Is a Matter of Perspective: An Anthology of Antagonists (2017) — Contributor — 94 copies, 3 reviews
Professor Charlatan Bardot's Travel Anthology to the Most (Fictional) Haunted Buildings in the Weird, Wild World (2021) — Contributor — 22 copies, 3 reviews
Looming Low Volume II — Contributor — 4 copies
Qualia Nous: Vol. 2 — Contributor — 2 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Warren, Kaaron
- Legal name
- Warren, Kaaron
- Birthdate
- 1965
- Gender
- female
- Occupations
- editor's assistant
check out chick
audio visual manager - Organizations
- Australian Horror Writer's Association
Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild - Agent
- Sally Harding (Cooke Agency)
- Short biography
- Kaaron Warren’s award-winning short fiction has appeared in “Year’s Best Horror and Fantasy”, ‘Fantasy Magazine’, “Paper Cities” and many other places in Australia, Europe and the US. She is an Australian currently based in Fiji. She is married with two children and they have a cat called "Fat Tuesday".
Her short story “A Positive” has been made into a short film called “Patience”, close to completion, and two of her stories were be part of a series of short, disturbing plays in February next year.
She is currently working on a novella about the goddess Ishtar, and a novel about the washerwoman in history. She has stories in Ellen Datlow’s Poe anthology and also her Haunted Legends anthology.
Her first novel, Slights, will be published by Angry Robot Books, followed by two more, “Mistification” and “Walking the Tree”. - Nationality
- Australia
- Birthplace
- Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
- Places of residence
- Suva, Fiji
Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia - Associated Place (for map)
- Australia
Members
Reviews
A truly compelling and thoroughly original concept in this new Australian weird-horror. A town with an ominous Time Ball Tower which is used to house the worst of the worst criminals. Those criminals were faced with a choice; execution at the hands of the state, or eternal life within the walls of the tower where they slowly decay. The town also provides the "keepers" and a one year contract minding the tower and its prisoners will set a young person up financially for life. This is the show more story of Phillipa Musket; descendant of the town's population and set on getting in and out of her shift unscathed. What she doesn't bank on though is the slow warping of her mind - the isolation, the noises in the dark, the manipulative prisoners - things get weird. A great read with layers of dread. show less
Publisher’s synopsis.
People come to The Angelsea , a rooming house near the beach, for many reasons. Some come to get some sleep, because here, you sleep like the dead. Dora arrives seeking solitude and escape from reality. Instead, she finds a place haunted by the drowned and desperate, who speak through the sleeping inhabitants. She fears sleep herself, terrified that the ghosts of her daughters will tell her “it’s your fault we’re dead.” At the same time, she’d give anything show more to hear from them one more time.
This haunting story starts with Dora’s arrival at The Angelsea. To her relief there’s no one at the reception desk but she finds the key to her room where the landlord had told her it would be, in a lock box that wasn’t locked … “It looks locked and that’s the main thing.” By the time I’d reached the end of the very short opening paragraph I already knew that this was going to be a story in which nothing would be as it appeared on the surface, and that I needed to be prepared for the unexpected and the disturbing.
The rooming house is dilapidated, cramped and rundown and is inhabited by people who are, in one way or another, equally broken. All are seeking an escape from their past experiences and actions but there is also an acknowledgement that the past is something they should neither talk nor ask about. The Angelsea’s reputation as a place where it’s possible to “sleep like the dead” is a powerful draw for those who cannot sleep, but they discover that when they achieve the sleep they crave, it is populated by ghosts. Many years earlier there had been a shipwreck on the coast, with all lives lost, and the spirits of the sailors, needing their voices to be heard, use the sleeping inhabitants to tell their stories.
Dora’s quest for peace, understanding, forgiveness and justice takes her on an unexpected, horrific and at times surreal journey, a journey which drew me into the story in an unrelentingly powerful way. The pain and confusion of her grief, guilt and desperation were compellingly conveyed throughout the telling of her story, making her a character it was possible to feel empathy with. However, equally finely drawn and vivid were all of the other characters, each of whom had a story which demanded attention and recognition. Considering how short this story is, I think this is a mark of the author’s remarkable skill at being able to make every single word count in her creation of convincing, memorable characters.
This isn’t a story it’s possible to pick up and put down at leisure. Rather like the ghosts, it demands to be listened to and to be heard, whatever the horrors it uncovers, whatever the unpleasant truths it reveals. It’s dark; it’s disturbing; it feels visceral in the way in which it taps into a deep fear of not having our voice heard, our history recognised, our feelings taken into account and our motivations understood. Yet it is also a story which offers the chance of redemption, forgiveness, justice and, eventually, cathartic resolution.
As I wasn’t able to write my review immediately after I’d finished reading this brilliant, perfectly-paced and controlled story, I decided to reread it so that it would be really fresh in my mind when I came to reflect on it. Even though I’d retained very vivid recollections from my first reading, its impact proved no less powerful the second time around and I’m now left with the feeling that it truly has “seeped into my bones like oil.” I feel in awe of Kaaron Warren’s ability to write a story which feels simultaneously other-worldly and yet entirely recognisable, as well as to create so many unforgettable characters in such a short novella. This is the first of her stories I’ve read, but I’m determined it won’t be the last.
With huge thanks to Tricia at Meerkat Press for giving me the opportunity to read an uncorrected proof of this wonderful book … and for yet again encouraging me to expand my reading experiences! show less
People come to The Angelsea , a rooming house near the beach, for many reasons. Some come to get some sleep, because here, you sleep like the dead. Dora arrives seeking solitude and escape from reality. Instead, she finds a place haunted by the drowned and desperate, who speak through the sleeping inhabitants. She fears sleep herself, terrified that the ghosts of her daughters will tell her “it’s your fault we’re dead.” At the same time, she’d give anything show more to hear from them one more time.
This haunting story starts with Dora’s arrival at The Angelsea. To her relief there’s no one at the reception desk but she finds the key to her room where the landlord had told her it would be, in a lock box that wasn’t locked … “It looks locked and that’s the main thing.” By the time I’d reached the end of the very short opening paragraph I already knew that this was going to be a story in which nothing would be as it appeared on the surface, and that I needed to be prepared for the unexpected and the disturbing.
The rooming house is dilapidated, cramped and rundown and is inhabited by people who are, in one way or another, equally broken. All are seeking an escape from their past experiences and actions but there is also an acknowledgement that the past is something they should neither talk nor ask about. The Angelsea’s reputation as a place where it’s possible to “sleep like the dead” is a powerful draw for those who cannot sleep, but they discover that when they achieve the sleep they crave, it is populated by ghosts. Many years earlier there had been a shipwreck on the coast, with all lives lost, and the spirits of the sailors, needing their voices to be heard, use the sleeping inhabitants to tell their stories.
Dora’s quest for peace, understanding, forgiveness and justice takes her on an unexpected, horrific and at times surreal journey, a journey which drew me into the story in an unrelentingly powerful way. The pain and confusion of her grief, guilt and desperation were compellingly conveyed throughout the telling of her story, making her a character it was possible to feel empathy with. However, equally finely drawn and vivid were all of the other characters, each of whom had a story which demanded attention and recognition. Considering how short this story is, I think this is a mark of the author’s remarkable skill at being able to make every single word count in her creation of convincing, memorable characters.
This isn’t a story it’s possible to pick up and put down at leisure. Rather like the ghosts, it demands to be listened to and to be heard, whatever the horrors it uncovers, whatever the unpleasant truths it reveals. It’s dark; it’s disturbing; it feels visceral in the way in which it taps into a deep fear of not having our voice heard, our history recognised, our feelings taken into account and our motivations understood. Yet it is also a story which offers the chance of redemption, forgiveness, justice and, eventually, cathartic resolution.
As I wasn’t able to write my review immediately after I’d finished reading this brilliant, perfectly-paced and controlled story, I decided to reread it so that it would be really fresh in my mind when I came to reflect on it. Even though I’d retained very vivid recollections from my first reading, its impact proved no less powerful the second time around and I’m now left with the feeling that it truly has “seeped into my bones like oil.” I feel in awe of Kaaron Warren’s ability to write a story which feels simultaneously other-worldly and yet entirely recognisable, as well as to create so many unforgettable characters in such a short novella. This is the first of her stories I’ve read, but I’m determined it won’t be the last.
With huge thanks to Tricia at Meerkat Press for giving me the opportunity to read an uncorrected proof of this wonderful book … and for yet again encouraging me to expand my reading experiences! show less
An excellent horror novel. The story is told through reports written by the Keepers, who are charged with guarding a group of desiccated, immortal criminals in a tower on an island. The levels of ambiguity, and the various narrators, many of whom are unreliable, give this tale an incredible unsettling quality. Add some piercing commentary about the nature of penal systems, and you get a near-perfect novel.
Delicious and creepy tales inspired by the Australian landscape.
3 shorts and a novella designed set to give you a taste of an author and oh what a taste Kaaron Warren is, rich and bitter and pungent. Stories about the lost, lonely, quaking women who live in the creeks and drag you down. Stories about road accidents and the ghostly comfort they bring. Stories about murder and falling to one’s inner desire and the good it can do. All the shorts poke and soothe and make way, nervously, for show more the novella “Sky” which insidiously wraps around you and when all comfort is gone rams it home with a bang. It’s striking and it’s so beautifully crafted. The way it unfurls and slowly builds, the way it holds a mirror (however twisted) to our everyday, to the things that tumble carelessly from peoples mouth, to the violence embedded and ignored in our society. It is a story so good because it could have gone so wrong, been so clumsy. Making horrible people mesmeric is a skill (may I just put a trigger warning here) and although there is a slight blip changing POV that’s my only complaint.
Hugely recommended to dark fantasy and horror fans, to those who like to see a dark mirror held up. To anyone who has starred at muddy water with trepidation or is suspicous of what goes in cat food.. show less
3 shorts and a novella designed set to give you a taste of an author and oh what a taste Kaaron Warren is, rich and bitter and pungent. Stories about the lost, lonely, quaking women who live in the creeks and drag you down. Stories about road accidents and the ghostly comfort they bring. Stories about murder and falling to one’s inner desire and the good it can do. All the shorts poke and soothe and make way, nervously, for show more the novella “Sky” which insidiously wraps around you and when all comfort is gone rams it home with a bang. It’s striking and it’s so beautifully crafted. The way it unfurls and slowly builds, the way it holds a mirror (however twisted) to our everyday, to the things that tumble carelessly from peoples mouth, to the violence embedded and ignored in our society. It is a story so good because it could have gone so wrong, been so clumsy. Making horrible people mesmeric is a skill (may I just put a trigger warning here) and although there is a slight blip changing POV that’s my only complaint.
Hugely recommended to dark fantasy and horror fans, to those who like to see a dark mirror held up. To anyone who has starred at muddy water with trepidation or is suspicous of what goes in cat food.. show less
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Statistics
- Works
- 60
- Also by
- 98
- Members
- 637
- Popularity
- #39,574
- Rating
- 3.6
- Reviews
- 39
- ISBNs
- 61
- Languages
- 2
