Page Horrific

Thanks for reading!

2011-11-13T10:24:00.001-06:00

We are closing our doors here at PH. Thanks to everyone who has read and enjoyed the blog and to all the reviewers for their hard work.

NEWS: FOREST OF SHADOWS Redefines Haunted Houses in Publisher’s Debut Horror Line

2011-10-14T19:02:00.005-05:00

What happens when an amateur ghost hunter becomes the hunted in an isolated Alaskan cabin, and the paranormal becomes all too real?

Debut horror novelist Hunter Shea explores the world of amateur ghost hunting in FOREST OF SHADOWS (e-book, $5.50, print, 350pp.,$15.00), part of Samhain Publishing’s new horror line in October. Shea’s novel follows the five year journey of a man’s descent into despair and anxiety and his attempts to find answers to life’s greatest question : what happens when we die?

New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Mayberry says, “With FOREST OF SHADOWS, debut novelist Hunter Shea combines ancient evil, old school horror and modern style. Highly recommended!”

In FOREST OF SHADOWS, John Backman wins the lottery on the same day his wife dies in her sleep. Driven by grief, he uses his financial freedom to explore the unknown and bring peace to his soul. Moving his family to a haunted cabin in Alaska presents him with a Pandora’s box, bursting with untold secrets and the proof he desires, but at what cost? It’s not just the house that’s haunted. He needs to beware of the entire town.

Alexandra Holzer, famed ghost hunter and daughter of Hanz Holzer, comments on Shea’s insight on the mindset and practices of ghost hunting, “Shea’s FOREST OF SHADOWS delves deep into the unknown. With twists and turns, it is very relatable to many on-goings today that deal with the field of the paranormal. A thrill-ride of a read!”

Samhain Publishing has created a brand new line of horror novels with the help of editor Don D’Auria, whose previous fifteen year run of breakthrough successes at Dorchester Publishing’s Leisure Horror line has earned him the reputation as one of the genre’s top editors with an impeccable eye for talent.

Hunter Shea lives in Westchester, NY and works as an executive director at a video company in lower CT. He’s the author of numerous short stories published in various print and online magazines. His second novel with Samhain Publishing, EVIL ETERNAL, will be released in spring, 2012.

For more information about FOREST OF SHADOWS, please visit Samhain’s website at http://store.samhainpublishing.com/horror-c-20.html or Hunter Shea’s blog at www.huntershea.com <http://www.huntershea.com/> .

THE LONG WAY by Ramsey Campbell

2011-10-14T18:56:00.000-05:00

There is no writer I look forward to reading more than Ramsey Campbell. His novel ANCIENT IMAGES was the second horror novel I ever read, and it spurred my ravenous appetite for the genre. His ability to invest things glimpsed for a half-second out of the corner of our eye into insidious, forbidden dangers is masterful. No one does it better. So when I saw a novelette by Campbell available for only 99 cents on the Kindle, I bought it immediately.

THE LONG WAY is about a boy who walks to his wheelchair-bound uncles’ retirement village every Saturday to help him buy groceries. His route takes him past a section of housing that has been vacated due to its proximity to a wooded area frequented by criminals. Through the doorway of one of those abandoned houses, the boy notices an obscured figure that seems to be leaning forward on sticks. There’s something unnatural about the way it keeps moving incrementally closer to the open portal each time he passes.

Like with everything Campbell writes, the atmosphere is charged with potential menace. The characters that inhabit the story are also well-developed. There’s the Uncle who likes to joke with his nephew, until his self-reliance is questioned. Then there are the boy’s parents, both teachers who keep themselves so preoccupied with community projects they have little time left for their son. The boy wrestles with his desire to help his uncle, the guilt he feels whenever he fails him, and his growing fear of the threats that seem to hover around his residence.

I highly recommend this novelette. It’s a quick read for a great price that lets you sample the amazing things Ramsey Campbell can do. If you’re discovering him here for the first time, there’s no shortage of wonderful tales ahead. His collection of short stories, ALONE WITH THE HORRORS, is my absolute favorite book. If I’m going to spend a few years on a deserted island, that one’s coming with me. His novels INCARNATE and THE GRIN OF THE DARK are masterpiece’s as well.

--MATT COWAN

PH4Q: Guy N. Smith

2011-10-02T16:33:00.001-05:00

1. Why horror fiction?

GNS: Horror fiction virtually dropped into my lap. NEL were looking for a werewolf book for their horror list. I was unknown to them but I submitted a 5-page synopsis (no specimen chapters). They accepted it within a week and the rest is history.

2. Your top five horror authors?

GNS: Lionel Fanthorpe, Brook Vaughn, Rakie Keig, H.P. Lovecraft and Bram Stoker.

3. Your top five horror books?

GNS: THE BARN, MOTHS, DRACULA, THE HOWLING, THE CASE OF CHARLES DEXTER WARD, THE LEGEND OF SAWNEY BEAN.

4. Recommend one of your own books as a first choice for new readers.

GNS: Start with WEREWOLF BY MOONLIGHT. All my books are now appearing as e-books in the order in which I wrote them. Around 30 already on Amazon - another 70 to go.

With a professional career that spans 35 years, a lot of ink has been cast upon paper and resulted in over 100 novels, non-fiction titles, children’s novels and thousands of short stories and articles relating to the countryside and game shooting. www.guynsmith.com

TORMENT by Jeremy Bishop

2011-09-19T20:56:00.001-05:00

I have been intending to read TORMENT for some time as Amazon insisted on several occasions that I would enjoy it based on my past purchases. Finally I found time to give it a go and to be upfront and honest, I am very glad that I did.

Perhaps the reason I enjoyed the book so much was because my preconceptions of its plot were totally wrong. I thought it would be your typical, end-of-the-world zombie apocalypse, but it is none of those things. Like a lot of doomsday novels recently, TORMENT follows a religious tone, but I honestly think that Bishop has managed it better than anyone else has recently. The story starts off a little while before the main event and this is refreshing and allows us to know the characters a little better than by thrusting them instantly into the horror. We even get to meet the President of the United States before the shit hits the fan and it is interesting to see how the cast behaves in their normal environments.

When the shit finally does hit the fan, we end up at the White House, space, and then back on Earth. In just a few short chapters we are left exhausted from just how much has happened, yet we have grown to know several characters already. Bishop is an expert of economy and manages to make every word count.

While the plot is fantastic, it is the characters that are the strength of the book. The protagonist, Mia, is a strong, unique woman full of grief and regret and we root for her from page one. There are many other characters too and one in particular evolves a great deal throughout the story, going from the main antagonist to the secondary protagonist. Watching this evolution was the most compelling part of the book.

The plot itself, as mentioned, is religious in its ideology and creates a vision of hell that I believe is very personal to the author. It is a world where people get what they deserve and a rich irony exists as one of TORMENT’s main themes. However, it would seem that this all culminates in an ending that has been displeasing to many.

I actually enjoyed the ending and I have certainly encountered worse (Stephen King comes to mind). It certainly is abrupt and doesn’t bring a great deal of closure – in fact I still don’t entirely understand it – yet it is the author’s right to conclude his vision in whatever way he sees fit, not always having to pander to the reader’s every whim. Whether or not the ending fulfils you, it is in keeping with the book’s theme and allows one to think for themselves. An Author’s Note at the end will provide additional clarity for those that absolutely need it.
All in all, I would say that TORMENT is a book that never lets up, keeping you gripped in a vice-like tension and terror from page one. Brilliant.

--IAIN ROB WRIGHT

THE HOLE by Aaron Ross Powell

2011-09-11T13:46:00.002-05:00

I’ll let you in on a secret – I’m bored of zombies. After a decade of being in love with shambling corpses and brain-eating monsters, I’ve had enough. Why have I had enough? Because there’s no originality left in the genre. There’s only so much you can do with a mindless horde and a group of trapped survivors before you start repeating yourself. Aaron Ross Powell is certainly guilty of this, but he also manages to give us just enough new ideas to make his new novel, THE HOLE, refreshing.

The hole isn’t a typical zombie novel and adds enough twists and turns to the plot to create something that is bordering on unique. The origins of the apocalyptic world errs more on supernatural/religious overtones than a man-made virus or alien flu. I think it is this choice that allows the novel to achieve success and builds a foreboding atmosphere of rapture and damnation.

The plot isn’t without clichés however. The two main characters follow the tried-and-tested ‘cross-country’ journey, where they encounter the horror and destruction on a national scale as they seek a final destination. This is a good way to set up some epic set pieces and a wider arcing world for the characters to inhabit, but I couldn’t help think that I had been on the journey before – from Blake Crouch’s RUN to Brian Keene’s THE RISING.

The cliché’s continue as the two main protagonists seek refuge with a ‘closed community’ of other survivors and this is again a premise I have seen countless times before. Fortunately, that is where things start to get fresh and interesting. The community of survivors are not just strange and overbearing, they are involved in occult practises that are at first unclear but later become evident. It is here that Powell weaves an interesting and unique tale of human endeavour and faith. Some may say that THE HOLE is an overtly religious novel, but I don’t think so. The story is more about the human spirit and what happens to us after death.

My main criticism would be that THE HOLE begins very slowly and the characters don’t immediately make themselves likeable – seeming far too ordinary to be interesting. But, as the pages turn, the protagonists evolve and the plot sheds it clichéd foundations and manages to build something unique and worthwhile. While THE HOLE isn’t the best read I’ve had this year, it was one I am glad to have experienced. Get through the first act and it will definitely entertain you.

--IAIN ROB WRIGHT

SUFFER THE FLESH by Monica J. O'Rourke

2011-09-09T16:59:00.000-05:00

Zoey Masterson is browsing in the diet section of a New York bookstore when a strange woman approaches and claims to be able to help her lose weight. Upon leaving the store Zoey is kidnapped off the street and wakes to find herself imprisoned with a group of other women in an unknown location surrounded by people who appear to be medical staff.

At this point you'd be forgiven for thinking the plot was going to be a reworking of Stephen King's classic short story, "Quitters Inc." But things soon take a much darker turn when Zoey realises she's been captured by a bunch of deranged perverts who rape and abuse the captive women for their own sadistic pleasure.

Writers are always being told that the best way to start a story is in the middle of a scene. Suck the reader in from the first line and don't waste time on superfluous description. But if anything the initial pages of SUFFER THE FLESH move too fast, and such is the speed of Zoey's transition from bookstore to holding cell that I found myself reading back over the opening chapter just to make sure I hadn't missed anything.

This is a powerful story that's closer to novella length than novel, but I felt it would've benefited greatly from a slower build up and the omission of the weight loss premise which wasn't really necessary to land the protagonist in her predicament and is ultimately irrelevant.

But these are minor criticisms of what is otherwise an extremely intense ride, and Monica J. O'Rourke is right up there with Charlee Jacob as one of the most hardcore female horror writers I've come across.

In fact SUFFER THE FLESH should be required reading for all those who claim that female writers can't be as brutal as their male counterparts.

In lesser hands, this kind of horror can easily degenerate into little more than gratuitous torture porn, but O'Rourke is a talented writer who keeps the story moving at a breathless pace and Zoey is a believable character who's both sympathetic enough to empathize with as she struggles to endure her harrowing ordeal, and gutsy enough to root for when she fights to escape.

Apparently the original print edition was plagued by typos but I'm happy to report that this new digital edition from Biting Dog Publications contains very few.

SUFFER THE FLESH is a gruesome nightmare of a story that lives up to its notoriety, and Monica J. O'Rourke is clearly a force to be reckoned with.

I can't wait to read more of her work.

--JAMES CARROLL

UNPLEASANT TALES by Brendan Connell

2011-09-07T18:20:00.000-05:00

Here we have a collection of tales that lives up to its name by an author who came as a complete surprise to this reviewer. It just goes to show that even when you think you are familiar with all the talented writers of the horror persuasion, there will appear another, eager to knock your socks off.

A number of tales in this book deal with transformation, transformation of others (whether they like it or not) or transformation of self, none of which situations are pleasant in the least. Connell’s expert use of detail, not only in the depiction of mutilation and metamorphosis but throughout all aspects of these stories, drives the gory, vivid images home, embedding them firmly in the reader’s mind.

Beside the transformation stories sit strange and twisted tales of pure terror dealing with things like cannibalism, a dark cult of dentistry, a sex-starved old woman, an incestuous family, horrifying otherworldly creatures, serial killers and more. Exotic locales and strange periods in history are employed frequently and the stories are all the stronger for it; the knowledge brought to bear here is impressive and may even occasionally prompt you to consult Google.

UNPLEASANT TALES is almost too potent for even the bravest soul to absorb in one or two sittings, yet there is plenty at hand for the next time you wish to test the strength and stamina of your horror muscle. Although I ran across several textual errors in this Eibonvale Press edition, these caused no great disturbance, and the prose itself is always impressive. There is a real artist at work here, and for lovers of the bizarre, Connell’s collection is a must-have--one that will reward even the most discerning reader of horror fiction.

--MAX WEDGE

LOOKING AT THE WORLD WITH BROKEN GLASS IN MY EYE by Mark Justice

2011-09-06T17:45:00.000-05:00

This collection from Mark Justice is a well written and diverse batch, containing both dark and humorous themed horror short stories and novellas. Fans of the much-loved, out-of-print Deadneck stories get two helpings of Southern zombie fun. Unfortunately, I don’t have the space to mention each story in this collection but all are tremendous. Here are some of my personal favorites:

1. “Father’s Day” – A man has his abusive father raised from the dead, but for what purpose?

2. “Auschlander’s Gem” – An American soldier finds a gem while liberating a Nazi concentration camp. The gem has magic abilities, but those abilities are bought at a steep price in this grim tale.

3. “Looking at the World with Broken Glass in My Eye” – A man with low self esteem tries to cope after his girlfriend breaks up with him in this tragic tale.

4. “Hell is a Lonely Street” – A cop obsessed with taking down bad guys finds himself in Hell.

5. “The Losers vs. Beelphegor” – A group of slackers planning to get their band back together encounter a demon.

6. “Song of the Bones” – A post-apocalyptic tale from the viewpoint of a man who has chosen to wait out the troubles in his now vacant apartment complex. The new aboriginal man who moves into the empty room next to his has other plans, however, in this evocative, surreal horror tale.

7. “Deadtown” – This novella centers around an artist who wakes up one morning to find most of the world around him has vanished. Only a small stretch of land remains. He and a few others from his apartment complex decide to seek out answers to what has happened.

8. “Agent of Death” – When the angel of death arrives to take a powerful movie agent to Hell, the agent makes him an offer to avoid that fate.

9. “Hole in the Sky” – A New York city cab driver begins to see a mysterious hole in the sky where the two towers once stood. Stranger still, he sees people and places in the hole, but no one else seems to see them. This is my favorite Mark Justice story. It’s bizarre and ominous, a true masterpiece of weird fiction.

10. “The Truths We Cannot Bear” – A man realizes he cannot recall any aspects of his life other than the time spent at his favorite bar in this weird tale.

11. “Das Hollenfeuer” – In an alternate-reality Earth where Nazi’s won WWII through the use of necromancers and demons, a pair of plant workers plot their revenge.

12. “The Autumn Man” – A harrowing tale about a young boy growing up in the 70’s who must deal with a brutal bully, as well as a dangerous supernatural force in the woods nearby. This is a very nostalgic, riveting tale that keeps the pages turning.

I highly recommend this great collection.

--MATT COWAN

THE MAN IN THE PICTURE by Susan Hill

2011-09-01T11:11:00.000-05:00

When I saw this novella in a stack of discounted books the other day, I read its back cover and was intrigued by the premise. When I read that its author, Susan Hill, also wrote WOMAN IN BLACK, which was adapted into a great British film several years ago, I was even more intrigued. The story is primarily told to the protagonist by his elderly college professor, who owns a unique painting. It depicts a street carnival scene in Venice filled with an assortment of masked revelers celebrating along the waterways. If examined too closely, however, one will begin to discover ominous details in the characters peopling the scene. They also run the risk of awakening the notice of a demonic force that inhabits the painting.

The story is rich with atmosphere. You can feel yourself sitting before a crackling fire in a book filled room listening to the dark tale or wandering along the crowded streets of Venice swarming with peculiar, often threatening, masked denizens. There is a strong influence of M.R. James at play, although it never attains the level of horror his best tales inspire. I enjoyed learning the history of how the painting came to reside with the professor, or more importantly, how its previous owner came into possession of it for a time and the terrible toll it exacted.

If you are a fan of M.R. James, J. Sheridan LeFanu, or even The Twilight Zone, I believe you will enjoy this eerie quick read.

--MATT COWAN

PH4Q: Paul Finch

2011-08-30T08:52:00.001-05:00

1. Why horror fiction?

PF: I don't just write horror [...]. I write thrillers and fantasy as well. But I like horror, yes. I can't say why for sure. All my influences as a youngster were horror related. I prefer supernatural horror to slasher stuff, so I suppose the aura of mystery does it for me. I certainly enjoy being scared - but in a safe environment, like a cinema or my own front room. I love that frisson of fear you get from a really good horror movie or horror story.

2. Your top five horror authors?

PF: Wow, this isn't easy. I'll try to name five, but I'm bound to miss someone out who I really rate. Here goes:

Clive Barker
Ray Bradbury
Graham Masterton
Stephen King
M.R. James

3. Your top five horror books?

PF:

THE WOLFEN - Whitley Strieber
GRENDEL - John Gardner
SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES - Ray Bradbury
NIGHT SHIFT - Stephen King
ALONE WITH THE HORRORS - Ramsey Campbell

4. Recommend one of your own books as a first choice for new readers.

PF: ONE MONSTER IS NOT ENOUGH

Paul Finch is a screenwriter, novelist, short story writer and journalist, whose published and broadcast work covers a wide spectrum of genres, including fantasy, science fiction and crime, but primarily concentrates on supernatural horror. http://paulfinch-writer.blogspot.com/

PH4Q: Adam Nevill

2011-08-24T16:27:00.000-05:00

1. Why horror fiction?

AN: It affected and captivated me from an early age.   

2. Your top five horror authors?

AN: I can’t [narrow] this into five … but here are five of them:

Robert Aickman
Thomas Ligotti
HP Lovecraft
MR James
Ramsey Campbell  

3. Your top five horror books?

AN: Same for top five authors …

THE STRANGE STORIES OF ROBERT AICKMAN, VOL. 1
GRIMSCRIBE -- Thomas Ligotti
THE TERROR -- Dan Simmons
THE COLLECTED GHOST STORIES OF MR JAMES
BURNT OFFERINGS -- Robert Marasco

4. Recommend one of your own books as a first choice for new readers.  

AN: THE RITUAL

Adam Nevill was born in Birmingham, England, in 1969 and grew up in England and New Zealand. He is the author of three novels of supernatural horror: BANQUET FOR THE DAMNED, APARTMENT 16, and THE RITUAL. He lives in London and can be contacted through www.adamlgnevill.com.

NOWHERE HALL by Cate Gardner

2011-08-20T11:51:00.001-05:00

The third edition of Spectral Press’ wonderful chapbook line is entitled NOWHERE HALL, penned by Cate Gardner. The story follows the increasingly bizarre dalliance with life, fate and madness experienced by ordinary everyman, worker bee Ron Spence. Gardner cuts to the chase quickly here, taking Ron from a momentary flirtation with suicide into the deadly and mysterious hotel called The Vestibule, beautiful on the outside, the interior a metamorphosic nightmare. The psychologically-charged tale has a definite Twilight Zone/Alice in Wonderland vibe, but Gardner’s scalpel-sharp character development, cleverly ironic style and fanciful sensibilities while dealing with some of the more outlandish elements in Ron’s maze-like journey, all combine to make this one compelling read. Gardner’s prose has a quite involving, interesting cadence to it, combining slightly off kilter phrasing with a nearly tongue-in-cheek irony that feels like it wants to be almost humorous, but ends up being moody and affecting—and imminently engaging and readable.

As always, this Spectral Press release boasts simple, yet effective cover art, comfortable-to-read layout, and a well-edited manuscript.

If you're looking for a dark funhouse ride through the fragile human psyche, led by a talented and impressive tour guide, NOWHERE HALL is your ticket.

--WALT HICKS

VERMIN by Scott A. Johnson

2011-08-16T18:02:00.001-05:00

They say you can’t judge a book by its cover but readers do it all the time, especially with books by unfamiliar authors. A cover is the first thing a reader sees and it either grabs their attention or it doesn’t. If I’d seen VERMIN in a bookstore I wouldn’t have picked it up, as the cover depicts four people posing against a backdrop of city lights and looks like a novelization of some forgettable TV drama, not a horror book.

So it was a nice surprise to discover that the cover was misleading.

After an accident leaves him dead for three minutes, Stanley Cooper is revived to find he now has the ability to see ghosts and auras, the living energy that surrounds people and places. When a series of strange murders and robberies hit the city of Pittsburgh, a detective asks Cooper to assist the investigation and he in turn enlists his friend Maggie, an amorous witch.

The crime scenes are being sucked dry of energy, leaving a dead blackness in their wake and gaping holes in walls and floors where the intruders have tunnelled up from underground. The blackness is spreading throughout the city as the murders and robberies increase and those who aren’t killed become feral creatures with superhuman strength that begin attacking people in mobs.

VERMIN starts strongly and the first half is fast paced and tightly written. Had Johnson maintained this style to the end, the book would’ve been very good indeed. But halfway through, the story begins to shift from a tense mystery to an over the top action shoot ‘em up that is ultimately a bit of a letdown.

The evil hordes are the main antagonists yet only ever seem like a peripheral threat. Their attacks come out of nowhere and end as abruptly as they begin, without leaving any real emotional impact, and the reason for the robberies is never explained. In one scene, a horde attacks Cooper when he’s at his night job in a warehouse, tearing apart the steel doors and killing a bunch of employees. His boss’s reaction to this nightmarish event is to merely accuse Cooper of collusion and fire him.

VERMIN is told in the first person which can be a powerful approach, but in this case the story was weakened without an additional viewpoint; and an antagonist’s in particular. The humour also became a problem. In certain scenes the characters point out the similarities between their own situation and those frequently encountered in various b-grade horror movie and computer games, attempts at irony that only cheapen the drama by drawing attention to its cliché nature.

There were also numerous typos throughout the text, not just misspellings but missing words and even incomplete sentences which made the story hard to follow at times.

All of this is a shame because Johnson can obviously write and VERMIN is a really cool story, it’s just a pity the execution wasn’t what it could have been.

--JAMES CARROLL

WOLF HUNT by Jeff Strand

2011-08-13T13:15:00.001-05:00

I only discovered Jeff Strand this year and I have to say that he is one of the most intriguing horror writers I have come across. He possesses a fine mastery of horror and comedy that places him in a similar category as J.A. Konrath (writing under Jack Kilborn) and Neil Gaiman. Strand’s latest novel, WOLF HUNT, is just as humorous as his previous titles, but that doesn’t hide its horror pedigree one little bit. This is as disturbing a book as you could hope to find.

WOLF HUNT, as you probably guessed, is a werewolf tale, but beyond that it is a unique and fresh tale, almost more of a ‘road trip’ than anything else. The story follows a pair of criminals, George and Lou, whom agree to transport some cargo for the mafia. That ‘cargo’ happens to be a young man purported to be a werewolf. His name is Ivan.

For the first part of the novel, we are left to wonder whether or not Ivan really is what he is reported to be. George and Lou certainly don’t believe it, but we, the readers, are left feeling just a little more suspicious about the events that may lie ahead. This indeterminate tension pokes and prods at the characters until their originally calm demeanours begin to unravel. It’s here that we are treated to the joyfully crass banter that Strand is an expert at creating. The interplay between George, Lou, and Ivan is hilarious at times and downright sinister at others. The two crooks are hard, no-nonsense characters while Ivan is sarcastic and confrontational. To say their personalities clash is an understatement.

Eventually we learn the truth about whether or not Ivan is in fact a werewolf and it is here that things take a decidedly ‘road trip’ sense of direction. The pace suddenly quickens as George, Lou, and Ivan go cross-country, leaving behind a twisted wreck of human flesh and innocent suffering. Now the comedy takes a backseat to out-and-out balls-to-the-wall horror.

Strand is a master of creating deep, multi-faceted characters with a warm spark of humanity that has us smiling and screaming in equal measures. This book is no exception and abyssal depths of depravity are reached by some characters whilst a strict moral-code governs the actions of others. This varied mix of personalities is what makes Strand’s novels such pain-turners; we get to know his characters and after a few pages we don’t want to leave them.

WOLF HUNT is a sick, twisted jaunt through the werewolf genre that follows many of the conventions whilst completely re-inventing others. It is funny throughout, but quite humanistic in places. A well-developed and finely-structured tale that is sure to appeal to any horror fan.

--Iain Rob Wright

WALKERS IN THE DARK by Paul Finch

2011-08-07T14:45:00.001-05:00

Lancashire native Paul Finch is yet another great writer who I’ve only recently discovered even though he’s been around for years, and this wonderfully dark and evocative collection blends supernatural horror and modern life with remarkable effect.

A young man travels to the Scottish Highlands in search of a missing woman only to become caught up in sinister events involving her Father’s new family and a jilted suitor in "The Formless". This dark tale of love and revenge is also an original take on the classic story of Macbeth which will have others writers wondering why they didn’t think of it first.

Up next is the novella length "Season Of Mist", one of the most stunning coming of age stories I’ve yet encountered. When children begin turning up dead after being violently beaten by a mysterious figure, a young boy and his friends attribute the murders to a local legend; the malignant spirit of a dead miner who is said to haunt an abandoned colliery. This tale of a young boy struggling with childhood fears and his newfound desire for an older woman is also a semi-autobiographical story based on Finch’s youth spent roaming the gutted wastelands of England’s industrial northwest, a world he describes in the kind of intimate detail that can only come from personal experience.

In "Fathoms Green And Noisome", a group of crypto-zoologists set out to explore an isolated lake in the Welsh mountains in search of a mythical creature only to discover that the real danger is among themselves. Finch conjures some astonishingly vivid imagery here and it’s testament to his skill as a storyteller that I was completely drawn into the reality of this monster hunt. My only complaint is that after such an intense build up I felt the ending was something of an anti-climax. Nevertheless, this was another superb story.

"Golgotha Way" has a war veteran become increasingly unhinged after a local cenotaph is desecrated and his fallen comrade appears to return from the dead. This is the shortest story in the collection but one of the most poignant, the view point shifting between horrific scenes from World War II and the present, as the veteran relives the pain and guilt of leaving his friend to die in order to save himself.

The most powerful tale however, is saved till last. "Walkers In The Dark" is an outstanding novella that blends dark age myth and history with modern day adventure when four students go in search of Viking treasure beneath a condemned monastery. This is absolutely riveting stuff, and to apply a simple label to it, or indeed to any of these stories, would be a great injustice.

This is imaginative fiction at its finest, and these highly atmospheric tales of haunted lives and innocence lost, transcend genre boundaries and ultimately defy classification.

Paul Finch is a fantastic writer and WALKERS IN THE DARK is another mesmerising collection from Ash Tree Press. Get your hands on a copy today.

--JAMES CARROLL

PH4Q: Stephen Volk

2011-08-04T19:16:00.003-05:00

1. Why horror fiction?

SV: Because it is the genre where I feel safe to hide.

2. Your top five horror authors?

SV: Richard Matheson, Joyce Carol Oates, Edgar Allan Poe, Dennis Wheatley, M.R. James

3. Your top five horror books?

SV: FRANKENSTEIN by Mary Shelley, THE DEVIL RIDES OUT by Dennis Wheatley, THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES by Arthur Conan Doyle, LUNAR PARK by Bret Easton Ellis, THE RITUAL by Adam Nevill

4. Recommend one of your own books as a first choice for new readers.

SV: DARK CORNERS (Gray Friar Press)

(All answers to the above are open to change depending on the weather, psychological influences, metabolic mood swings, and cussedness.)

STEPHEN VOLK is best known as the writer of the notorious BBCTV mockumentary Ghostwatch, the paranormal drama TV series Afterlife and Ken Russell's movie Gothic. His first collection of short stories was DARK CORNERS (Gray Friar Press), his novella VARDOGER was shortlisted for a Shirley Jackson Award, and his new feature film (co-written by director Nick Murphy) is The Awakening starring Rebecca Hall and Dominic West, out in cinemas later this year. www.stephenvolk.net

“The Abolisher of Roses” by Gary Fry

2011-07-31T07:53:00.002-05:00

“The Abolisher of Roses” by Gary Fry, published by Spectral Press, weaves the story of married couple Peter and Patricia, on the surface, an average-enough husband and wife with divergent interests and personalities. This is another fine example of ‘quiet horror,’ in which seemingly mundane events and circumstances build to a terrifying revelation of guilt and pent-up angst and regret. Fry, in addition to being a superlative wordsmith, holds a PhD in psychology, and that higher education serves him quite well in this slow burn of psychological suspense. The characters are interestingly well constructed and, although the story builds just a bit slowly for me, Fry cleverly drops small morsels of foreboding leading into the shadowy wood, carefully crafting an atmosphere of dread surrounding the outer edges of Peter’s existence. Once he settles down to brass tacks, Fry masterfully completes his frightening portrait of a man’s mind turned against itself, with an inevitable epilogue exposing the blinding truth of self-realization.

Spectral Press’ sophomore edition should be commended for a fine job with an appropriately understated cover art for the novella, the comfortable-to-read lay-out, and a very well-edited read.

Another great example, in an often brutally explicit world of entertainment, that often less is more, and sometimes the smaller terrors run the deepest.

--WALT HICKS

ANIMOSITY by James Newman

2011-07-28T18:42:00.000-05:00

Whenever I review a piece of work I try very hard to find a balance between the good and bad. While my reviews generally focus more on the positive aspects of a novel, out of fairness to the author, I always try to highlight any flaws I see. ANIMOSITY, by James Newman, however, is one of those rare novels that left me with absolutely nothing negative to say about it, and as such was one of my best reads of 2011 so far.

What is really unique about ANIMOSITY is how much tension it manages to create from such a modest premise. There’s no end of the world, science fiction infused, epicness here, just a man and his dog living in a modest house in a modest neighbourhood. It’s something we can all identify easily with, which is why the tension builds so naturally throughout the pages when the story’s conflict presents itself.

The main character is a horror author named Andrew Holland. Estranged from his wife and struggling to maintain a relationship with his young daughter, Andrew’s life is thrown upside down when he discovers the recently murdered body of a preteen girl on one of his daily walks. Doing the right thing, he calls the police immediately and gives a statement. They believe him of course; why wouldn’t they? But speculation from the local press leads to his ‘friendly’ neighbours being a little less trusting of him. What begins as a subtle hate-campaign against the innocent author soon escalates into a hell far worse than anything he could ever hope to describe in one of his horror novels. When a second murder is committed, Andrew begins to fear for his life.

What makes this novel a masterpiece (yes, I said it) is the subtlety. Things progress in such a finely detailed manner that you can’t help but be sucked into the daily life of Andrew Holland and experience the horrors that he goes through as though it were happening to you. The human nature we witness within the pages of ANIMOSITY is enough to make you feel sickened by the world, because it’s true. We can absolutely believe that the story here could quite easily happen in real life, and that’s what makes this book so frightening.

If I really dig deep to find a criticism it would be that there is not enough payoff at the end. Certain people in the story deserved to be punished so bad that I was left unfulfilled when I was left to assume their fates. Part of me wanted it in black and white so I could have closure on the nightmare I had just experienced. I think an extra few paragraphs at the end of the book could have achieved this. That’s me just being picky though.

This is the first time I have encountered James Newman, but it definitely won’t be the last. He can officially count me as a ‘fan’, and after reading ANIMOSITY you will most likely be a fan too.

--IAIN ROB WRIGHT

THE COLISEUM by Patrick Lestewka

2011-07-25T17:20:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I think the real horror of the genre is that some of its finest practitioners often fail to find the audience they deserve. Despite a wealth of critical acclaim, brilliant writers such as Charlee Jacob, Robert Devereaux and Greg Gifune remain virtually unknown outside an inner circle of those in the know.

I was familiar with Canadian author Craig Davidson’s work, having read his collection RUST AND BONE and his novel THE FIGHTER, so I already knew the man was an amazing talent. What I didn’t know until recently was that he also writes hardcore horror under the pseudonym Patrick Lestewka.

That I might have gone through life without ever discovering this information is too terrible to contemplate, because THE COLISEUM is without a doubt the most impressive hardcore horror novella I’ve ever read.

Am I alone in this opinion? I couldn’t tell you. To the best of my knowledge there have been no reviews or even a murmur of interest in the book. Somehow Lestewka has fallen into the category of the aforementioned writers, except in this case even the acclaim seems to have eluded him. His debut novel The PRESERVE received high praise from horror great Brian Keene but apparently little attention beyond that.

The implications of this are terrifying. If a writer as good as Lestewka can be ignored then there can’t be much hope for the rest of us. And just how good is he? Imagine a hybrid of early Clive Barker and Edward Lee in top form, a distinctive voice that is as brutal as is it beautiful, highly literary and effortlessly readable.

Yeah. That good.

THE COLISEUM is the story of three very different men condemned to the Innuvik Penitentiary deep in the Canadian wilderness where only the absolute worst offenders are incarcerated. Inside there are no rules, no guards and no escape. The inmates have devolved into primitive tribes who wage savage war on each other. Rape, murder and cannibalism are the norm. The atmosphere is tight from the opening line and becomes ever more intense as Lestewka ups the ante with every twist and turn.

If you’re a jaded fan or fellow writer who thinks they’ve read it all, then think again. This is 21st century horror fiction that leaves most of the competition for dead.

What else can I say? Patrick Lestewka is an astounding writer and THE COLISEUM is essential reading for those of us searching for a hardcore horror book that will blow them away.

Get it now, or go one better and buy a copy of DAMNED: AN ANTHOLOGY OF THE LOST, the collection from Necro Publications in which THE COLISEUM first appeared alongside other stories by many of the greatest writers in the field.

--JAMES CARROLL

“Jasmine & Garlic” by Monica J. O’Rourke

2011-07-23T15:09:00.000-05:00

Published at Smashwords by Biting Dog Publications (available free!), “Jasmine & Garlic” by Monica J. O’Rourke is the brutally graphic short story of an unsuspecting mother-to-be (the relatively generic Cassandra) and her increasingly terrifying clinic visit presided over by the sinister Dr. Windling. What could be considered a somewhat routine (if extremely explicit) psycho killer tale is saved mostly by O’Rourke’s nicely fashioned cadence of prose and well-timed pacing of suspense. The characters tread familiar territory and might’ve been greatly enhanced with just a sentence or two of back story, beyond the obvious trappings of despair, madness and poverty. However, that detachment accentuates the underlying irony that doctor and patient in this clinic of horrors scarcely know each other’s names during such an intimate exam, and subliminally illustrates the impersonalized degradation often undermining today’s medical practice.

The PDF version I read was well-laid out and easy on the eyes. No cover piece (although there is one at the Smashwords site). It was also a little jarring that the usual disclaimer stuff ran almost directly into the story text (again, in the pdf version) without break or titling. Some minor punctuation/editing issues, but nothing too distracting.

If the intent of offering "Jasmine & Garlic" as a free read is to interest readers in more of O’Rourke’s work, I think it is at least a moderate success. If you are fascinated by this sub-genre of ‘extreme’ horror with strong undercurrents of sexual deviation—and you are not faint of heart or easily disturbed by strong language/themes—then O’Rourke’s style and imagination will certainly be your cup of hemlock.

--WALT HICKS

PH4Q: Thomas Ligotti

2011-07-20T17:32:00.003-05:00

1. Why horror fiction?

TL: Having the label "horror" attached to an author's work allows him to express all manner of anti-social, pathological, totally twisted and miserable attitudes without being personally blamed by the reader for offenses against societal norms. All horror writers know this fact instinctively from the time they begin writing.

2. Your top five horror authors?

TL: In no particular order:

1. H. P. Lovecraft
2. Edgar Allan Poe
3. M. R. James
4. Arthur Machen
5. J. S. LeFanu

3. Your top five horror books?

TL: Any collection of short stories by the authors listed above.

4. Recommend one of your own books as a first choice for new readers.

TL: GRIMSCRIBE

Thomas Ligotti Online

PH4Q: Ramsey Campbell

2011-07-16T14:32:00.000-05:00

1. Why horror fiction?

RC: I began writing horror fiction in an attempt to pay back some of the pleasure the field had given me. I continue because I still don’t feel I’ve found the boundaries of the genre, by which I certainly don’t feel restricted (although the way it has become a marketing ghetto is another matter). I’ve always regarded it as a branch of literature. Two of the anthologies I bought when I was young helped shape my view of it. BEST HORROR STORIES, edited by John Keir Cross, included Graham Greene and Faulkner next to Bradbury and M. R. James, and quite a stretch of it was occupied by Herman Melville’s novella “Bartleby”, a psychological study which, even at eleven years old, I thought entirely at home in the book. GREAT TALES OF TERROR AND THE SUPERNATURAL, edited by Wise and Fraser, had Balzac as well as Lovecraft, Hemingway alongside Blackwood, Karen Blixen beside Machen. I don’t mean to imply that the specialists are less literate than the mainstream writers, though too often they’re perceived that way.

Perhaps because it was frequently my childhood companion, I value the emotion of terror as highly as any other, especially when (as in the best work in the field) it touches awe. It’s no less valid as an aim in prose fiction than in film, in music, in painting and the other arts. One can enjoy the form that produces the emotion just as well in prose as in, say, music without undermining the power of the work – indeed, such formal appreciation can enhance it. I became aware early on that good horror fiction achieves its effects through the selection of language and the timing of prose. I’m also convinced that the genre is an eloquent medium for discussing the world we make and how we live in it, not to say die. I’ve no plans to leave the field: it’s where I live.

 2. Your top five horror authors?

RC: Only five? If absolutely restrained to that I’ll go for Poe (who refined the Gothic and focused all its elements – especially the psychological – to a new intensity), Lovecraft (who spent his entire career trying different modes to find the perfect form for the tale of supernatural terror), M. R. James (who can convey more dread in a phrase than most of us achieve in an entire tale), Fritz Leiber (who virtually invented the modern form, where the everyday setting is the source of the supernatural rather than being invaded by it) and Robert Aickman (the master of the oblique tale of terror, always worth rereading). But oh to have room for Blackwood, Machen, Ligotti, Tuttle, Klein and many another…  

3. Your top five horror books?

RC: Now I’ll really confuse the issue:

Collected Tales, Poe (any definitive edition)
A PLEASING TERROR (Ash-Tree Press – the definitive M. R. James)
THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE (Shirley Jackson)
THE COLOUR OUT OF SPACE: TALES OF COSMIC HORROR, edited by Douglas Thin
THE COLLECTED STRANGE STORIES OF ROBERT AICKMAN (Tartarus Press)

  4. Recommend one of your own books as a first choice for new readers.

RC: Could I list a collection and a novel? For short stories, DARK COMPANIONS – for a novel, THE GRIN OF THE DARK.

http://www.ramseycampbell.com/

QUARANTINED by Joe McKinney

2011-07-15T18:40:00.002-05:00

Police sergeant, Joe McKinney, has become one of those ‘zombie guys’ like Max Brooks or J.L.Bourne. His debut novel DEAD CITY was a traditional zombie-romp through Texas and several more of his novels have followed a similar premise. This has given the author a hardcore fanbase that expect a certain type of story, which may be why McKinney’s topics have a tendency to be a little narrow. However, one of his works, QUARANTINED, promises to be a little different.

Set, as with most of McKinney’s stories, in San Antonio, Texas, QUARANTINED follows a version of events where America’s seventh largest city has been decimated by a virulent strain of the common flu virus. Now completely walled off from the outside world, the citizens of San Antonio must try to survive day to day while still retaining some semblance of order. So when Homicide Detective, Lily Harris, discovers the murder of a young girl, she is determined to get to the bottom of it. But in a city where thousands die each day, does one single murder really matter? To Detective Harris it does.

From the outset, the story follows more of a crime thriller route than a horror one, and if I am honest I feel that McKinney is better suited to this, considering his police background. The investigation of the protagonist is organic and follows the kind of logic and procedure that one would expect from a homicide detective. The whole journey feels realistic and believable, which works well to create the horrifying contrast of the deadly quarantine that constantly threatens everyone within.

The story reminded me in many ways of DEAD AMERICA by Luke Keioskie and shares its success in mixing the genres of crime and horror, creating a unique tale that has us turning pages compulsively as we seek to unravel the mystery. The pace is rapid and remains so, making QUARANTINED a quick and easy read that could easily be finished over a rainy weekend.

Going back to the beginning of this review, my one complaint still would be that McKinney’s scope is a little narrow. While there are no shambling corpses in this novel, the deadly virus and walled-in city have definite overtones of a zombie novel. Perhaps the author lacked the confidence to move completely away from the genre that brought him success or maybe he was trying to give his audience more of what they want. Maybe it’s neither of those things and McKinney just writes about the things that he enjoys. One thing for certain is that QUARANTINED is a tense thrill-ride of an adventure that you won’t regret reading. Check it out!

--IAIN ROB WRIGHT

PH4Q: Matthew Fryer

2011-07-11T19:34:00.000-05:00

1. Why horror fiction?

MF: It’s a calling. I was always gleefully fascinated with the macabre as a child, and its forbidden nature only made it more appealing. I love the rich imagery of the genre, both the hokey stuff as well as the sublime. When writing, it’s the freedom of imagination and taste, and exploring how human beings might react when instincts and emotions start to boil.
And I love it that some people think writing horror is weird.

2. Your top five horror authors?

MF: This changes, of course, but at this moment it’s a reasonably firm Gary McMahon, H.P. Lovecraft, Poppy Z Brite, Carlton Mellick III and Paul Finch.

3. Your top five horror books?

MF:

APT PUPIL – Stephen King
BOOKS OF BLOOD – Clive Barker
THE MONK – Matthew Lewis
DANGEROUS RED – Mehitobel Wilson
THE WASP FACTORY – Iain Banks

4. Recommend one of your own books as a first choice for new readers.

MF: No solo books as yet, but I’m rather proud of my novella “Iron Maiden”, and it’s been well received. Download the ebook anthology “Living After Midnight”.

Matthew Fryer lives in Sheffield, England with his wife. As well as reading and writing, he spends too much time losing at poker, listening to loud music, and hoping it will rain so he doesn’t have to mow the lawn.

Visit his website the Hellforge at www.matthewfryer.com

MEAN STREETS Now Available

2011-07-11T19:26:00.000-05:00

Horror icons Gord Rollo and Gene O'Neill have just released MEAN STREETS: Tales of Urban Horror, a short story collection that features gritty urban horror stories that they penned either individually or as a team. Dark, twisted, surprising and terrifying, the book offers something for every horror fan, as it explores the darker side of our urban world. The release is bookended by an introduction by Kealan Patrick Burke and an afterword about the collaboration by Gord Rollo and Gene O'Neill.

- Introduction by Kealan Patrick Burke
- Marcela Transmuting by Gord Rollo and Gene O'Neill
- Chameleon by Gene O'Neill
- Divine Intervention by Gord Rollo
- Lord Rat by Gord Rollo and Gene O'Neill
- New Kicks by Gene O'Neill
- Moving Pictures by Gord Rollo
- Breath of and Angel / Touch of the Devil by Gord Rollo and Gene O'Neill
- Afterword on Collaboration by Gord Rollo and Gene O'Neill

Available now for only $2.99!

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

SIN & ASHES by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.

2011-07-09T07:12:00.001-05:00

Beautiful, yet brutally jarring imagery dominates SIN & ASHES by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr., but the knock-out combination for me is the author's vast knowledge and understanding of various genres and styles of literature, music, pop culture and even religion, coupled with his perceptive brand of noirish 'tough love'. Pulver's insight into history's grasp on both present and future, and the human animal's slavery to its baser instincts is sublime, if often rendered with punishing blows by a velvet-covered blackjack. The juxtaposition of poetic language against a stark background of horrid human behavior, addictions, and callousness desolately illuminates his intuitive, if ultra dark, vision of the human condition.

The lead-off story "Love Her Madly" bobs and weaves with mind-reeling synergy about Jim Morrison's unexpected return from the dead to a forebodingly sickening LA. Pulver takes us on many a bizarre and psychedelic journey thereafter, each story more original, shocking and human than the last, until we arrive, simultaneously mentally stimulated and exhausted, at "The Last Twenty Miles of Wandering Again", Pulver's brilliant, nostalgic and wonderfully-rendered surrealistic road trip with Dylan.

The shorter stories probably work a little better for me, particularly “She’s Waiting”, “Devil’s Got the Walkin’ Blues”, “Scarlet Obeisance”, “Perfect Grace”, and others, because each is like a dark little treat, bursting in the mind like a forbidden morsel, with an aftertaste not soon forgotten.

Appropriately published by Hippocampus Press (who also publish Ligotti, Aronovitz, Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, etc.), this volume is a MUST-READ for those who appreciate literary horror/speculative fiction. I should correct that statement to read "MUST-EXPERIENCE", because the reader doesn't only read a Pulver story, the prose and story-telling are so devastatingly powerful that each story is a soul-searing EXPERIENCE. Highly recommended.

--WALT HICKS

PH4Q: Mary SanGiovanni

2011-07-06T17:54:00.003-05:00

1. Why horror fiction?

MS: I feel that horror, of all genres, encompasses the broadest ranges of humanity, the very best (and worst) that we can be. It offers endless possibility for metaphor, and has always seemed to me to be the most fun.

2. Your top five horror authors?

MS: Stephen King, Peter Straub, Shirley Jackson, William Peter Blatty, H. P. Lovecraft.

3. Your top five horror books?

MS: IT, GHOST STORY, LEGION, SKELETON CREW, HOUSES WITHOUT DOORS, THE BEST OF H.P. LOVECRAFT: BLOODCURDLING TALES OF HORROR AND THE MACABRE.

4. Recommend one of your own books as a first choice for new readers.

MS: THRALL

Mary SanGiovanni is the author of The Bram Stoker nominated THE HOLLOWER, its sequel FOUND YOU, and THRALL, as well as numerous short stories and novellas. She lives in NJ with her son. http://marysangi.wordpress.com/

COME OUT TONIGHT by Richard Laymon

2011-07-04T13:27:00.000-05:00

Richard Laymon was one of the most prolifically talented horror authors of the last century and perhaps one of the most criminally-underrated in his native United States. Although his back catalogue is long and varied, the man has a key strength that perhaps eclipses all others: the ability to create realistic psychopaths and sexual deviants. While Thomas Harris may be proud of creating Hannibal Lector, Laymon was creating believable madmen almost every novel. One of my favourite of all is Toby Bones.

COME OUT TONIGHT is a story about Sherry, a super-strong female lead that makes the mistake of sending her boyfriend out alone to get some condoms from the store across the street. Several hours pass and he does not return. The reason: Toby Bones.

Toby is a student of Sherry’s and completely obsessed with her. After watching her for some time, he is ready to take what he wants. What ensues for the next 400 pages is a thrilling cat-and-mouse game that, surprisingly, goes back and forth, with Sherry often giving as good as she gets. As the story progresses, we get so angry at Toby’s sick and twisted behaviour that we are literally gagging for him to get what’s coming to him, but just when that looks like it’s going to happen, he gets away and turns the tables back on Sherry. Each time this happens we have to fight the urge to scream in frustration.

COME OUT TONIGHT is indicative of Laymon’s style and in my opinion is one of his best works. As with almost all the man’s work, things start off gradually before hitting a breakneck stride. Once there the pace never lets up. Suspense, suspense, suspense.

As with a majority of Laymon’s work, one should expect ample amounts of sex, gore, and morbid depravity. If that isn’t for you then you won’t enjoy this novel, but if you can endure it, you will get to the end feeling as though you have been on an incredible journey. Your nerves will be shot to pieces, but I guarantee there will be a smile on your face.

This isn’t Laymon’s most popular book, but is a good one to start with to get a flavour of the man’s work. Sadly he passed away in 2001. Luckily he left behind an extensive collection of fantastic horror.

--IAIN ROB WRIGHT

PH4Q: Mark West

2011-07-01T09:07:00.001-05:00

1. Why horror fiction?

MW: Because, as a writer, it gives me the broadest possible canvas to work on, from love stories right up to a zombie apocalypse, touching every single point between the two. Where else do you get that kind of freedom? As a reader, it’s a way to work through fears, to see “what if” and to safely experience said zombie apocalypse without actually getting covered in blood and brains.

2. Your top five horror authors?

MW: Wow. Robert McCammon, Dennis Etchison, Clive Barker, Stephen King and Gary McMahon.

3. Your top five horror books?

MW: BOY'S LIFE, by Robert McCammon; THROAT SPROCKETS, by Tim Lucas, BOOKS OF BLOOD VOL. 1, by Clive Barker; FALLING ANGEL, by William Hjortsberg; and one I haven’t read yet.

4. Recommend one of your own books as a first choice for new readers.

MW: CONJURE would be a good place to start and I have a short story in ILL AT EASE. As good a place as any, I suppose.

Mark West was born in Northamptonshire, England in 1969 and began submitting to the small/independent press in 1998 and had several things published - short stories, a collection, a novel. He’s now working on longer pieces, but also attempting to perfect the art of procrastination.

www.markwest.org.uk

PH4Q: T.M. Wright

2011-06-25T11:19:00.001-05:00

1. Why horror fiction?

I prefer to think of it as dark fiction. Only because, the word horror encompasses some elements that my own writing usually avoids. But i guess I am talking about "quiet" horror. And to answer your question, I write "quiet" horror because of all the almost limitless narrative possibility.

2. Your top five horror authors?

Ramsey Campbell, Tom Piccirilli, Shirley Jackson, Edgar Allan Poe and Charles L. Grant.

3. Your top five horror books?

GHOST STORY, THE SHINING, THE OTHER, THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR, and THE STRANGER.

4. Recommend one of your own books as a first choice for new readers.

LITTLE BOY LOST and BLUE CANOE.

Uninvited Books.com

ILL AT EASE by Bacon, West and WIlliams

2011-06-20T19:42:00.000-05:00

Here we have a short story anthology containing three dark tales by British horror writers of varying publishing experience, from Mark West, who has been around a while, to Neil Williams, the relative newcomer.

But it is Stephen Bacon who kicks it off with “Waiting For Josh,” about a journalist who visits a childhood friend in his hometown upon the dying friend’s last request. What he discovers when he arrives are dusty memories and an unsolved mystery tied to their shared past to which he seeks and eventually finds the disturbing answers. This suspense tale certainly has an impressive pall over it; Bacon displays expertise at setting an eerie or bleak scene. My only quibble is that the story seemed too short, wanting more room to breathe; despite the effective atmosphere, the plot moves along too quickly for the telling. Nevertheless, I remain impressed and want to see more by him, perhaps even a full-length thriller. I’d definitely be up for that.

Next up is the enticingly titled “Come See My House In The Pretty Town” by Mark West. Here is another tale where the protagonist pays a call on an old friend, only this time it’s in a town he’s never before had the pleasure of visiting. There is immediate tension in the form of an uncomfortable secret between the story’s lead and his old friend’s spouse. And as if that isn’t enough emotional strain, the author piles on even more trouble: the town’s local fair winds up being an event much darker than it at first seems. By the end of this trip into the twisted, West has skillfully steered us to a place of ultimate horror, resulting in a blood-chilling climax that may feel familiar to horror fans but is effective regardless. This genuinely creepy tale holds you firmly in its grip the whole way through.

Neil Williams’ “Closer Than You Think” pulls the plug on what I thought was going to be a trio of tales about how you can’t go back--or else! But here there is no visit to an old acquaintance. Instead, we are offered an entirely different type of tale and one that, despite its differences from the previous stories, makes for an effective finale. With just as much craftsmanship as his antho mates, Williams weaves a tale of dread centered around an abandoned car seat that the main character finds while dumping off an old mattress. The car seat is in excellent condition and it just so happens that our protagonist has a young daughter, so he brings it home. Unfortunately, by tale’s end, this seemingly innocent object has become the focal point for both terror and heart-breaking tragedy.

Suffice it to say, ILL AT EASE lives up to its title. And at $2.50 for the e-book, you should not hesitate to buy.

--MAX WEDGE

PH4Q: Scott Nicholson

2011-06-20T16:42:00.000-05:00

1. Why horror fiction?

Unlimited possibilities. Once you throw out all the rules of this so-called "reality" (which is illusion anyway), then you can build whatever you want.

2. Your top five horror authors?

I'm pretty old-school, so I will go with Stephen King, Shirley Jackson, James Herbert, Ira Levin, and Skipp & Spector.

3. Your top five horror books?

MISERY, MAGIC by William Goldman, ROSEMARY'S BABY, THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE, THE SHINING.

4. Recommend one of your own books as a first choice for new readers.

I'm pretty excited about LIQUID FEAR, even though it's more of a psychological thriller. I pretty much twisted every knob in the kitchen for that one.

Scott Nicholson is author of more than 20 books, as well as six screenplays, four comics series, and three children's books. His website is http://www.hauntedcomputer.com/.

HEART-SHAPED BOX by Joe Hill

2011-06-18T16:40:00.000-05:00

The cat’s out of the bag when it comes to Joe Hill; it’s common knowledge that his father is Stephen King and that "Hill" is his middle name. While this may be a great accolade, it is also a reason that this particular author is often over-criticised. People compare his work to his father’s instead of taking it for what it is: early work from a writer taking only the first steps in what is likely to be a very long and successful career. That doesn’t, however, mean that the criticism is without merit.

HEART-SHAPED BOX is Hill’s debut novel and is essentially a ghost story. It follows the exploits of Judas Coyne, a wealthy, philandering, middle-aged rocker who is quite firmly in love with himself. Yet beneath this veneer of self-confidence is a battered and bruised personality that slowly reveals itself to the reader as the pages go by. It is this revelation, that Coyne isn’t quite the jackass he makes himself out to be, that eventually endears us to him. Which is why we root for him when a wicked ghost latches on to him.

The ghost, Craddock (the father of one of Coyne’s many sexual conquests), comes to Coyne when the aging rocker buys a dead man’s suit on the Internet to add to his morbid collection of oddities. Little does he know that by taking ownership of the suit, he is also taking ownership of the ghost, and the ghost wants him dead. From there Coyne undertakes an exhausting journey into his past that brings up many painful memories, but doing so is the only hope of dispelling the ghost of Craddock from his person. Fortunately he doesn’t have to do it alone, and is joined in his quest by his current groupie, Georgia, and his two dogs, Angus and Bon.

As I mentioned earlier, some criticisms of Hill are somewhat warranted. One of these would, ironically, be a flaw that his father is often accused of: that he does not write a good ending. The book seemed to lose steam in the third act and a lot of the earlier suspense was extinguished as too much information was revealed too fast. The book’s ending is also a little too flowery for me and doesn’t seem organic to the tone that ran throughout the rest of the book. It was a letdown to what was nearly one of my best reads of the year.

As a first effort however, Hill shows himself to be a talented and competent writer that understands the genre and conventions that his father helped to define. He writes convincing characters and infuses them with memorable personalities that jump off the page. Joe Hill will almost undoubtedly go on to do great things, but for me HEART-SHAPED BOX fell a little flat.

Worth checking out, but you may have to push yourself to get to the end.

--IAIN ROB WRIGHT

DEAD SEA by Brian Keene

2011-06-11T14:34:00.000-05:00

Any zombie fiction fan worth their salt will be familiar with Brian Keene, the Bram Stoker award-winning author of THE RISING. Those people would also know that the man’s prolific output (often 3 or 4 novels a year) makes it very hard to keep up with all of his work. This may be why one particular entry of Keene’s backlist is often overlooked in favour of his more seminal works, GHOUL and THE RISING (along with its sequel CITY OF THE DEAD). The novel I am referring to is DEAD SEA.

Set in a different world to that of THE RISING’s demon-possessed zombies, DEAD SEA features the more traditional Romero-esque undead; shambling hordes of rotting corpses. This may be unoriginal to some, but a big plus for many that dislike the modern ‘sprinting zombie.’ However, despite a nod to tradition, Keene adds a unique twist to the subgenre by good use of setting.

The story begins with Lamar, a gay, black man, fleeing a burning city full of the dead. Along the way he picks up two lost, yet plucky, children and finds his way to the docks. There he manages to board an ex-navy cutter, the USS Spratling, and sets sail along with a handful of other survivors.

The premise of being stuck aboard a ship during a zombie holocaust may not be entirely original (THE MORNINGSTAR STRAIN comes to mind), but Keene creates a world all his own through his excellent cast of characters. Like pretty much all of Keene’s work, we are given people to root for and people to hate. The protagonist is realistic and flawed, while the antagonists are normal people that react in negative and selfish ways under stress. We can see bits of ourselves in all the characters that Keene creates, and in this regard he is very much like Stephen King at his best. So confident is the author in his characters that he even has one person discuss ‘hero archetypes’ and their impact on narratives. The self-referential piece of dialogue is fun and interesting but also gives us an insight into just how well Keene understands his craft.

With so many books to choose from, many will opt to read Brian Keene’s better known works, and perhaps that makes sense, but I would strongly suggest giving this one a try because it may just be one of his very best. The ending in particular is very strong and left me ruminating on it for days afterwards.

So if you like your zombies slow and rotting, this is the book for you.

--IAIN ROB WRIGHT

CARNAL SURGERY by Edward Lee

2011-06-06T13:41:00.000-05:00

My prayers have been answered and Deadite Press has released yet another collection of Edward Lee’s short fiction, the third in just twelve months. Twenty-three of his hardest to find stories are now available in very affordable editions with fantastic cover art, a contribution to the genre that is surely worthy of an award. My only real gripe is the continuing problem of typos, which are sadly par for the course with the small press.

CARNAL SURGERY is filled with more tales of society’s outcasts, the downtrodden, the doomed and the damned. Unlike the two previous collections however, these stories aren’t as extreme, and for the most part there’s also a notable absence of rednecks, along with Lee’s unique brand of humour that’s mostly generated by the dialogue between those characters. But this absence only makes for a darker mood.

A wandering philosopher is not prepared for the grotesquery he discovers on a visit to an American backwater in "The Seeker." "Please Let Me Out" explores just how far a woman will go to hold onto a promiscuous man who fulfils all her sexual desires, while "The Order Of Nature" is a brutal hostage story.

"Goddess Of The New Dark Age" has another philosophical character discover a terrible truth whilst in search of what’s real followed by a fine example of how Lee excels at the longer short form in "Hands," a brilliantly analytical study of a serial killer with a bizarre fetish.

"The Table" is a very short piece about a woman with another sick fetish while "Death She Said" is about a man on the verge of suicide when a mysterious woman intervenes.
"The Piece Of Paper" sees a homeless junkie with rotting legs witness a shooting in an alley with dire consequences and "The Blurred Room" is another great story where the law catches up with lowlife scum involved in the dark world of underground pornography.

I found "The Blurred Room" of particular interest as it comes with a preface where Lee explains that it was one of the first pieces of fiction he ever wrote. What’s fascinating here is that Lee’s voice was all his own right from the start. It can take years before a writer develops enough to shed their influences and find their own voice, but not Lee. Without the preface I never would’ve guessed this story was over 30 years old, as it feels as fresh and contemporary as anything he’s written in recent years.

Those of us who know something of his background will be aware that Lee had a brief stint as a policeman back in the day, and the penultimate story "Gut-Shot" feels particularly autobiographical of this period.

Last is the poignant "Make A Wish," a surprisingly sensitive tale of two junkie prostitutes living on the streets, one of whom is dying of AIDS.

CARNAL SURGERY is another stellar collection from a horror legend and you must get it immediately.

But you knew that already, didn’t you?

--JAMES CARROLL

PH4Q: Mark Morris

2011-05-28T08:06:00.000-05:00

1. Why horror fiction?

MM: It's just something that's entwined into my DNA, and the reasons I love it so much are many and varied. I love the visceral sensation of being scared (albeit in a safe way) by horror movies, and have done so from a very young age; I love the fact that horror fiction enables writers to explore and push the boundaries of imagination, which in the best horror fiction results in startling ideas and images, which I regard as sustenance for both the mind and the soul; I love the subversive nature of horror fiction (i.e. the fact that 'normal' people shy away from it delights me); and I love the fact that horror fiction enables writers to confront the big questions about life, death, good, evil, spirituality and the extremes of human experience and emotion.

2. Your top five horror authors?

MM: Tough one, as this changes a lot. I'd have to say Stephen King and Ramsey Campbell for definite, but after that it comes down to individual books or series of books. I adored Clive Barker's BOOKS OF BLOOD and his first couple of novels, but I find his work too over-indulgent now. I loved James Herbert when I was a teenager, but again I find his stuff a bit stodgy nowadays. I love Peter Straub's early work (GHOST STORY in particular is a masterpiece), but again the last two novels I've read of his, MR. X and A DARK MATTER I've been disappointed by. THE CEREMONIES by T.E.D. Klein is a favourite of mine, but he's not prolific enough to judge on a lifetime's work. I also generally like the work of writers like Dennis Etchison, Nick Royle, Conrad Williams, Robert Aickman, old favourites like Bradbury, Bloch and Matheson... oh, and I've adored Tom Fletcher's first two novels, THE LEAPING and THE THING ON THE SHORE. And then of course there are the 'old masters' -- M.R. James and Blackwood in particular. And I ought to mention a few writers who have specialised mainly in TV and film writing -- Nigel Kneale, Brian Clemens, Steve Volk, Steven Moffat etc.

3. Your top five horror books?

MM: Again, this is ever-changing, but I'll base it on the impact that these particular books had on me at the time and say THE SHINING by Stephen King, DARK COMPANIONS by Ramsey Campbell, THE COLLECTED GHOST STORIES OF M.R. JAMES, the complete works of Robert Aickman and SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES by Ray Bradbury. Ask me again tomorrow and I'll have a completely different list.

4. Recommend one of your own books as a first choice for new readers.

MM: Again, this is hard as they're all very different. My first novel, TOADY, for instance, is a big, multi-character, phantasmagorical horror/fantasy novel, my book THE IMMACULATE is a small-scale, claustrophobic ghost story, my novel FIDDLEBACK (written under the name J.M. Morris) is a weird, slightly dream-like psychological thriller, and my more recent novel THE DELUGE is an apocalyptic, end of the world odyssey. If pushed, I'd probably say FIDDLEBACK or THE IMMACULATE, though it depends largely, of course, on the individual preferences of the reader.

MARK MORRIS is the author of 17 novels and numerous short stories, which have appeared in a wide variety of anthologies and magazines. As well as horror fiction, he has also written novels and/or audio dramas for Doctor Who, Torchwood and Hellboy. He is the editor of the horror movie anthology, Cinema Macabre, which won a British Fantasy Award in 2007, and its follow-up volume, Cinema Futura, published recently by PS Publishing. His website link is www.markmorriswriter.com.

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A WEREWOLF HUNTER by Brian P. Easton

2011-05-21T12:26:00.000-05:00

Every year Sylvester James travels with his father from Alberta to the Canadian Rockies to stay with an old Cheyenne friend named Michael Winterfox. In 1963, Sylvester’s father is killed by a wolf during their annual visit and his devastated son soon learns that it was no ordinary creature but the werewolf of myth and legend that Michael calls The Beast.
Thirteen year old Sylvester vows to avenge his father’s death and remains in the wilderness with Michael who begins training him in the ways of the Reydosnin warrior, an obscure fighting sect of which the old man is the last surviving member.

The concept of an orphan taken under the wing of a wise old master and subjected to extreme discipline in order to develop extraordinary abilities that will enable him to become a hero is probably the biggest cliché in fantasy fiction. Yet within the context of a horror story, Easton manages to rework this tired formula into something that feels amazingly fresh.
Sylvester isn’t just another flawed but well meaning protagonist who fights the good fight and eventually triumphs over a clearly defined evil. Nothing so prosaic. This is an intense character study of an anti-hero, a lone vigilante driven by a single minded hatred where nothing he does is for the good of anyone else but solely in the interests of his own personal vendetta.

Armed with an assortment of weapons and silver bullets, Sylvester becomes a hired gun for various government agencies and the relentless pursuit of his lupine enemies takes him across the world in a journey that spans nearly twenty years. It’s a journey of incredible pain and suffering, both physical and psychological, and as time goes on his humanity is stripped away under the onslaught of his tribulations until he becomes indifferent to the innocent lives that are caught in the crossfire of his one man war against The Beast, whom he discovers exist in far greater numbers than he first assumed.

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A WEREWOLF HUNTER is a gripping tale full of action and adventure with real character development and often literary prose. Easton not only has a mature voice and a fine imagination but he also writes with the kind of confidence an author needs to imbue such a fantastic tale with a genuine sense of verisimilitude. His use of diverse environments also plays a major part in this, and the Canadian wilderness in particular is portrayed with an intimate detail that suggests he has extensive personal experience of it or has really done his research. Probably both.

In a world where horror is increasingly simplified and diluted to attract a wider audience and teenagers in particular, it’s great to see an intelligent book written for adults that puts the brutality back into one of the classic supernatural predators.

Now if only Mr Easton would turn his attention to vampires, he might just be able to resurrect them from the sparkly grave to which they have recently been consigned.

--JAMES CARROLL

THE MINOTAURESS by Edward Lee

2011-05-07T17:21:00.000-05:00

This release from Necro Books is actually two short novels, THE MINOTAURESS and THE HORN-CRANKER. Both share a common element, although ironically this plays a relatively minor role in either drama, the first of which centres around two of Lee’s most infamous characters, a couple of psychopathic rednecks named Dicky and Balls.

To the best of my knowledge, the pair first appeared in Lee’s notorious novel THE BIGHEAD, but those who have read the not quite so notorious yet equally brilliant CREEKERS, might remember them in an earlier incarnation as Gut and Scott-Boy.

MINOTAURESS takes us back to the early Nineties where the old school friends hook up again as young men in the hick town of Luntville. Balls is fresh out of prison and Dicky has an unsavoury job washing soiled laundry from a massage parlour until he buys a new transmission for his El Camino and the two men embark on a new career running moonshine across the state line.

The pair have even greater ambitions though, but their plans to rob the house of a wealthy occultist go awry when they discover that although the owner is overseas, dark forces are still present inside his house. Accompanying Dicky and Balls is a junkie whore and a character simply referred to as The Writer, an educated city dweller who finds the grim realities he’s seeking as inspiration for a new novel when he becomes caught up with the trio.

THE MINOTAURESS is a not only highly entertaining but the complex philosophical introspection from The Writer’s perspective gives it the kind of texture and dimensional depth that makes you wonder how such an intelligent and talented author like Edward Lee can be so continually underrated.

There’s even a cameo from another of his infamous characters, Ol' Lud, aka Mr Torso. What more could you want?

THE HORN-CRANKER is just as entertaining. Dean Lohan is a former world champion. He used to be a hard drinking, bar brawling redneck stud from South Dakota who could rip the horns out of a steer’s head with a hand-held contraption faster than anyone alive. Now he’s a downtrodden wimp who lives in Seattle with a demanding wife who treats him like dirt.

Problems arise when Dean’s old personality begins to break through in the form of vivid hallucinations where he sees himself inflicting acts of extreme violence upon the woman he supposedly loves. During this crisis, his father ends up in a coma after being gored by some kind of wild bull following a series of grotesque murders in Dean’s hometown. Dean returns to investigate, and in the process confronts demons both personal and supernatural.

My only criticism here is the surprisingly weak ending. Just when the mood should have been darkest in order to deliver the powerful finale such a great story deserves, the humour became incongruently light-hearted, even camp. A rare slip indeed for Ed Lee.
But this quibble aside, THE MINOTAURESS is essential reading for any fan of hardcore horror.

--JAMES CARROLL

TRAGIC LIFE STORIES by Steve Duffy

2011-04-23T11:31:00.001-05:00

Ash Tree Press have been putting out some great books recently and this collection is no exception. The title story alone is worth the price of admission, the tale of a failing fantasy writer who decides to write a misery-lit novel after being dumped by both his partner and his publishing house.

What starts out as a darkly humorous take on the industry's preference for formulaic novels churned out by overrated hacks at the expense of better writers, soon veers off into much darker territory where the writer’s sanity is called into question as he becomes locked in an obsessive relationship with his latest literary creation; an abused boy.

This is outstanding stuff, especially given that the plot and theme are ones I’ve come across before.

And this was the case with some of the other stories too. Urban dread. Alienation and despair. City dwellers venturing into rural areas with unpleasant consequences. People who become lost and trapped, both in the world and in themselves.

Widely read fans of the genre will no doubt find these things familiar too, but such is the strength of Duffy’s writing that it didn’t detract from my enjoyment even when I could see what was going to happen halfway through such stories as "Tantara," where a couple visiting the countryside get caught up in a traditional hunt of a very different kind. And in "Certain Death Of A Known Person" where a man struggles with a premonition of an ineluctable horror, or "The Fabric Of Things" where a woman becomes increasingly marginalized at a new job due to strange renovations that encroach upon her work space.

Then there were the stories that seemed to lead me down familiar paths only to rip me away to somewhere else entirely as in "The Nightmare Farm," where a man finds his relationship under constant strain due to lack of interest in his partner’s bad dreams. And in "Someone Across The Way," an unnerving take on the doppelganger theme where a man realizes that the figure in the window across the street not only looks just like him, but appears to have acquired many of his former possessions.

"Only Passing Through Here" is a superb tale of creeping terror where a thief is forced to choose between taking refuge in a haunted house or remaining outside to face the claustrophobic darkness that appears to be closing in around him.

The penultimate "Numbers" is a poignant story about the impact of the AIDS virus on the gay community in America as recounted by various men, and "The First Time" takes us back to England in the mid-seventies during the nascent punk scene in Manchester where a teenage boy loses his virginity to an older woman who turns out to be involved with the occult.

Steve Duffy is not just a great storyteller but a prose stylist of enviable finesse and TRAGIC LIFE STORIES is a haunting collection that belongs in yours.

--JAMES CARROLL

DEPRAVED by Bryan Smith

2011-03-23T17:12:00.000-05:00

These days it’s hard for any writer to come up with something new in the horror genre as just about every conceivable subject has been explored. Even things that were once taboo such as cannibalism and torture porn have become familiar fare and lost much of their power to shock. But this is a good thing. It means those who continue to write about these topics have to rely more on storytelling ability and character development in order to deliver, and with DEPRAVED Bryan Smith does exactly that.

The story opens with a woman named Jessica driving along in the sticks with the man who raped her earlier locked in the trunk. She stops in a clearing to execute him but things go awry when a group of armed rednecks with grotesque deformities appear out of nowhere as she’s about to pull the trigger. Jessica escapes into the woods only to find herself stranded in the isolated town of Hopkins Bend where she soon discovers that the inhabitants are infinitely more despicable than her rapist. Unbeknown to her there are others trapped in the town too, men and woman who’ve been stripped naked and locked in animal pens where they're repeatedly raped and beaten for the amusement of the townspeople.

According to the plot summary on the back cover DEPRAVED is all about an annual ritual held by the residents of Hopkins Bend to protect them from a curse that has befallen the Kinchers, a mutant clan who are turning into something less than human courtesy of the malignant evil that controls the town. But this is a bit misleading. The real story here is one of survival and murderous revenge by a small group of outsiders forced to endure the most horrendous treatment imaginable at the hands of the deranged townspeople who use and abuse them like pieces of meat. In the process, it’s the outsiders who are ultimately transformed from innocent victims into dehumanized beings every bit as ruthless as their captors.

With its multiple characters and story strands, DEPRAVED could’ve easily become muddled in the hands of a more inexperienced writer but Smith weaves it all together with a skill that shows why he’s held in such high regard by horror greats like Brian Keene and Edward Lee.

DEPRAVED is a gripping tale by a writer who gets better with every book and will be sure to satisfy fans who like their fiction at the more extreme end of the spectrum.

--JAMES CARROLL

JAMES NEWMAN OFFERS READERS "AMERICAN HORROR STORY" WITH LATEST NOVEL, ANIMOSITY

2011-03-19T08:26:00.001-05:00

Hendersonville, NC -- James Newman announces the release of his new novel, Animosity, available now from Necessary Evil Press.

Animosity is the story of Andrew Holland, a bestselling horror writer whose life starts to mirror the fictional nightmares of his novels after he finds the body of a murdered child not far from his home. Though the authorities clear him of any wrongdoing, as weeks pass with no arrest the local media insinuates connections between the gruesome subject matter of Andy's novels and his tragic discovery. In a community tainted by suspicion and paranoia, Andy soon finds himself a pariah, and fears he might not make it out of his once-idyllic neighborhood alive. Subtitled "An American Horror Story", Animosity is a modern-day morality tale in which the monsters wear familiar faces . . . rather than bloodthirsty vampires or brain-eating zombies beating at the door, these are our friends, our families, our peers . . . .

Animosity has received advance praise from a number of established authors. Rick Hautala (Occasional Demons) called the novel "a great story filled with tension and genuine horror . . . this book will entertain you even as it shows the worst in human nature and our struggle to rise above it", J.F. Gonzalez (Survivor) said it "echoes the works of Bentley Little and George Orwell", and the novel features a special Foreword by award-winning novelist Ray Garton (Live Girls).

James Newman's previously published books include the novels Midnight Rain and The Wicked, a short story collection, People Are Strange, and several novellas, including Holy Rollers and The Forum. The film rights to Animosity were optioned pre-publication, and a screenplay is currently being shopped around Hollywood.

The signed, limited hardcover edition of Animosity can be ordered directly from the publisher, Necessary Evil Press (www.necessaryevilpress.com <http://www.necessaryevilpress.com/> ), or from online bookstores such as Camelot Books (www.camelotbooks.com <http://www.camelotbooks.com/> ), and the Horror Mall (www.horror-mall.com <http://www.horror-mall.com/> ). Additional information can be found on the author's website, www.james-newman.com <http://www.james-newman.com/> .

THIS WAY TO EGRESS by Lawrence C. Connolly

2011-03-16T17:42:00.001-05:00

After the author’s introduction, THIS WAY TO EGRESS opens with a story of the same name where a woman on the brink of madness finds herself battling hallucinations inside a psychiatrist’s waiting room. In “Circle of Lias” a man staying with his family in a hotel stumbles across a strange cult when he goes looking for food in the middle of the night while “Painkeeper” is about a woman with the ability to extract pain from others and hold it inside herself.

In “Moon and the Devil” two con men seeking lucrative work find only horror when they step into the shadowy world of illegal dogfights and in “Smuggling the Dead” a Russian woman hires an American man to retrieve a mysterious box from a museum in Leningrad during the last days of The Soviet Union.

“Flames” defies the clichés you’d expect from a plotline where three college kids take refuge in an abandoned house after their car gets stuck during a snowstorm and “Lesions” is a highly original story of a man with a bizarre medical condition who travels to Italy to be treated by a specialist only to discover that she knows his darkest secrets.

A Russian gangster who thrives on taking what’s most precious to others meets a man who claims he can break into locked and guarded rooms without detection in “The Break-In Artist” and in “Wired for Fear” a young man takes up the challenge to spend a night inside a haunted house with unexpected results.

When a man’s daughter is abducted, his search leads to a hidden monastery occupied by a sinister religious order in “Reckoning” and a paranoid man convinced that people are conspiring against him decides to use extreme measures to deal with them in “Striking Terror.”

Russian gangsters return in “The Soothsayer” where a man who can see the future in human entrails is the only hope for their survival and in “Shooting Evil” a photographer developing some pictures of a woman in his darkroom realizes something is terribly wrong with her.

In “Hungry Ann” a man finds out the hard way that his ex-girlfriend wasn’t being dramatic when she said she’d die if he ever left her, and three young criminals get a nasty shock when they target a strange old lady who lives alone in “Things.”

A courier haunted by disturbing visions of third world sweatshop workers is sent to deliver a special package to a very wealthy man in “Decanting Oblivion” while two school boys set out to prove their teachers are secretly vampires in “Buckeye and Spitball.”

A boy breaks into an old woman’s house and discovers a terrible secret in “Mrs Halfbooger’s Basement” and we close out with “Echoes” where a mother struggles to cope with a son who talks to his dead brother as though he were still alive, without realizing she still has problems of her own.

THIS WAY TO EGRESS is a fine collection and a must-have for lovers of dark fiction.

--JAMES CARROLL

PH4Q: James Newman

2011-03-10T07:33:00.000-06:00

1. Why horror fiction?

Because this stuff is just so freakin' cool! I've loved books and movies about "things that go bump in the night" since I was just 4 or 5 years old. I can't ever remember being scared by such subject matter, just infatuated with it.

2. Your top five horror authors?

Joe R. Lansdale (although I don't guess he's really a "horror" writer), Ed Gorman (ditto), Stephen King, Robert R. McCammon, and F. Paul Wilson.

3. Your top five horror books?

THE SHINING by Stephen King, CHRISTINE by Stephen King, THE GIRL NEXT DOOR by Jack Ketchum, CAGE OF NIGHT by Ed Gorman, THE CHILDREN'S HOUR by Douglas Clegg.

4. Recommend one of your own books as a first choice for new readers.

The new one, ANIMOSITY. It's scheduled for release in just a few weeks, from Necessary Evil Press. I think this one will really resonate with horror fans, as ANIMOSITY says a lot about how the "normal people" view those of us who love this stuff. This book is my "love letter" to the horror genre, and to the often thankless job of being a horror writer . . .

James Newman lives in the mountains of North Carolina with his wife and their 2 sons. His published works include the novels MIDNIGHT RAIN, THE WICKED, and a short-story collection, PEOPLE ARE STRANGE. Due for release this month is novel ANIMOSITY, and a novella, REVENGE FLICK!. James is currently hard at work on his latest book, a tale of "Southern noir" called UGLY AS SIN. http://www.james-newman.com/

A. MERRITT

2011-03-05T08:28:00.000-06:00

Fans of classic pulp horror adventures should seek out some of Abraham Merritt's stories. He worked as an editor for The American Weekly magazine where he made enough money to travel the world, bringing back weapons and artifacts from exotic locals. He wrote fiction on the side, producing short stories and novels in the fantasy, science-fiction and horror genres. His stories were always full of adventure, mystery and the bizarre. Two of his works were made into films (Seven Footprints to Satan a silent film in 1929 and The Devil Doll from his story “Burn Witch Burn” in 1936). Here’s a sampling of his short stories:

1- “Through the Dragon Glass” (1917) – A man, who became a millionaire by taking riches from the Forbidden City in Peking, suddenly vanishes from his room one night only to reappear there the next day with vicious claw wounds raked across his chest. When his friend comes to visit, he shows him a beautiful polished stone mirror surrounded by 13 carved dragons. He tells him how he passed through the mirror to an unearthly realm with seven moons. There he met a lovely woman with whom he fell in love. The mysterious place also holds great danger for the man as well.

2- “The People of the Pit” (1917)- Two men exploring the North Pole encounter a badly injured man who crawls to their campsite at the foot of a mountain shaped like a giant hand thrusting out of the earth. The man tells them a wild tale of his own excursion upon the mountain. He found a deep hole in its center that contained hewn steps that travel for many miles into the earth. There he encounters bizarre things, and his life is put in jeopardy. The story seems to be based off the old hollow earth theories. This is a wonderfully atmospheric tale that is my personal favorite Merritt story.

3- “The Pool of the Stone God” (1923) – A group of five men escape a sinking ship on a lifeboat that shores on a strange island. They find a perfect square of open space, free of trees. In its center is a large stone pool. The pool has a 20’ statue of a cruel looking man with bat-like wings and outstretched arms beside it. Touching the wings fills the men with nausea, but that isn’t the worst of it.

4- “The Drone” (1934) Four men gather at their Explorers Club to talk. They are learned men of history, the arts and science. Their talks turn to legends involving Werewolves, Leopard Men and Fox Women. The veracity of these old stories are disputed which leads to two of the men relating strange events they personally encountered. The first tale is a creepy one involving a tribal priest who transforms himself into a hyena to eat human flesh. The next man’s tale is about a unique and truly unexpected transformation.

--MATT COWAN

BULLET THROUGH YOUR FACE by Edward Lee

2011-03-01T17:45:00.001-06:00

Deadite Press should be applauded for releasing another collection of out-of-print and hard to find stories by the master of gross-out horror. My only gripe (apart from the odd typo) is that the blurb on the back cover gives away the plot of all three stories, something that was totally unnecessary. So don’t read the back until you’ve finished the book.

First up is a long short story called "Ever Nat," and even by Ed Lee’s standards this is seriously hardcore. An absolute nightmare of a tale involving sexual violence on a scale that has to be read to be believed. "Ever Nat" is hard to describe without spoiling the plot but suffice to say it’s about a man who gets a whole lot more than he bargains for one night when he picks up a white trash whore on the way home from work. Exhilaratingly brutal stuff.

"The Salt Diviner" is next. A short story about a man deep in debt to a loan shark but with no way of paying until he befriends a strange medieval figure in a bar whose ability to predict the future comes with some unpleasant strings attached. After "Ever Nat," this one seems almost tame at first but soon descends into a dark tale of perversion and betrayal.

Lastly we have a novella, and with a title like "The Refrigerator Full Of Sperm" you just know it’s going to be an Ed Lee classic.

Chief Richard Kinion and his oversexed partner Micah Hays are two small town cops who get caught up in a bizarre series of events involving a dead doctor, a missing woman, and a sink full of empty drink bottles. The investigation is interspersed with Hays’ hilarious accounts of his depraved sexual exploits that he insists on describing to his boss in explicit detail at every available opportunity. The Chief’s disgusted reactions only add to the hilarity in this riotous tale of redneck lunacy.

A final word here on character. No one does rednecks better than Ed Lee. No one even comes close. Other writers have to work at making their characters come to life but Lee’s are immediately alive in a way that seems effortless due to his cracking dialogue and mastery of dialect. His characters are deeply flawed but that’s what makes them human. The real horror lies in the casual violence and obscenities these characters are prepared to inflict on others in order to get what they want. And that’s the most disturbing aspect of Edward Lee’s fiction. By writing with such brutal honestly about the human condition he shows us that even the most despicable activities are just normal behaviour for some people. Maybe even a lot of people.

In fact these sickos and maniacs could be everywhere. Your local mechanic might be one or some guy you just met in a bar. He could be a cop.

Maybe even your next door neighbour.

Maybe even you.

--JAMES CARROLL

PH4Q: Norman Prentiss

2011-02-22T16:35:00.000-06:00

1. Why horror fiction?

I grew up watching TV horror hosts in the 70s, and lived for those old black and white Universals and cheapie Corman flicks. Loved the thrill of offscreen suspense, and those long delays (and even longer commercials!) before the monster showed up. I think the idea of offscreen horror helped shape my taste for "quiet horror," where a lot of the violence/gore goes unstated.

2. Your top five horror authors?

Douglas Clegg
T. M. Wright
M. R. James
Poe
Shakespeare

3. Your top five horror books?

NEVERLAND, Douglas Clegg
COLD HOUSE, T. M. Wright (available in full within his recent collection from Cemetery Dance, BONE SOUP)
THE GRIN IN THE DARK, Ramsey Campbell
THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE, Shirley Jackson
DRAMAS FROM THE DEPTHS, Reggie Olliver (a massive collection of stories that I'm still savoring, but it's already a favorite)

4. Recommend one of your own books as a first choice for new readers.

My out-of-print novella, INVISIBLE FENCES, if people can still find copies on eBay; or the SHIVERS VI anthology from Cemetery Dance, which has my story "The Old Ones," and also has great stories by many of my other favorite writers not listed above: Stephen King, Peter Straub, Lisa Tuttle, Brian James Freeman, Kealan Patrick Burke, Glen Hirshberg, Brians Keene and Hodge--I should list the entire TOC, since I really love the whole book. Can't go wrong with that one!

Norman Prentiss recently won the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Short Fiction for “In the Porches of My Ears,” in Postscripts 18. His first book, Invisible Fences, was published in May 2010 by Cemetery Dance. His fiction has also appeared in Black Static, Commutability, Tales from the Gorezone, Damned Nation, Best Horror of the Year, The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror, and in three editions of the Shivers anthology series. His poetry has appeared in Writer Online, Southern Poetry Review, and Baltimore's City Paper, and is forthcoming in A Sea of Alone: Poems for Alfred Hitchcock. His essays on gothic and sensation literature have appeared in Victorian Poetry, Colby Quarterly, and The Thomas Hardy Review. http://normanprentiss.com/

FEEDING GROUND by Sarah Pinborough

2011-02-15T18:35:00.000-06:00

I first discovered this wonderful British writer a few years ago when I read her novel THE HIDDEN. It was a powerful story of murder and abuse that left me wanting more but as usual I had a hundred other books to read and she soon slipped off my radar. She’s back on it now though, and if FEEDING GROUND is anything to go by she’s here to stay. This is a brilliant novel that grabbed me by the throat from the first page and didn’t let go until the bitter end. The opening chapter alone is one of the best I’ve read in a long time. Aspiring writers take note: this is how it’s done.

Blane Gentle-King is the underworld boss of a housing estate in Newham that he controls along with his right hand man Charlie Nash. The story opens with him doing time in a Brixton prison, where he and his fellow inmates have been left locked up in their cells for hours on end. Blane begins to realize that something has gone terribly wrong when the guards are nowhere to be seen and the prison falls silent save for the frightened cries of inmates demanding to be fed. When Charlie unexpectedly busts him out, Blane soon learns that while he was inside, the female population seems to have disappeared and London has become infested with man-eating spiders.

But where others see nothing but a living nightmare, Blane sees only opportunity, and is determined to become kingpin of London with the help of his former girlfriend, a drug addicted whore whom he discovers is still every bit as dependent on crack as when she was human. Through an ingenious idea, Blane discovers that he still has a hold on her, and others like her, and hatches a plan to turn the disaster to his advantage and take over this strange new world, even as it drowns in an alien rain that only seems to invigorate the spiders and tighten their control.

The use of conquering arachnids as a post-apocalyptic theme is one I’ve seen before in Colin Wilson’s classic Spiderworld novels but Pinborough makes it all her own, building the tension to an unbearable pitch in this masterful tale of survival in a world where humans are no longer at the top of the food chain.

It was only after finishing FEEDING GROUND that I found out it’s actually a sequel of sorts to an earlier novel, BREEDING GROUND. It reads as a standalone novel though, and at no point did I feel as though I were missing anything.

FEEDING GROUND is the kind of horror novel that makes me want to run out and get my hands on everything Sarah Pinborough’s ever written, lock myself away in a room for a week and read it all in one go.

And you know what? I might just do exactly that.

--JAMES CARROLL

LOST PLACES by Simon Kurt Unsworth

2011-02-08T19:36:00.001-06:00

LOST PLACES is a collection of short stories by Simon Kurt Unsworth published by Ash-Tree Press. Each of the 18 stories it contains is well worth a read. His characters are interesting, his plots imaginative and he possesses a knack for creating stories that hook you from the start. Whenever planning our family vacations, I’m always on the lookout for someplace where I can revel in my love of all things eerie. That’s what reading many of these tales did for me. They transported me to resorts, beaches, a rustic forest lodge, a church on a small Greek island, to name a few, which have been infused with supernatural forces picking at the threads of our reality.

While I enjoyed all the stories in this collection, some stood out as personal favorites.

• “A Different Morecambe” – I found this story about a man taking his young son on a routine daytrip to a seaside resort to be the eeriest. The resort is in bad shape and perhaps not so deserted as it first appears.

• “The Old Man’s Pantry” – An avid runner comes across a disturbing dummy dressed like a man who used to ambush and kill travelers centuries before. This encounter is only the beginning of the danger to come.

• “Stevie’s Duck” – I didn’t expect to like this story based on its title. How could a story about a duck be remotely scary? After reading this dark, forbidding tale, I found the answer.

• “Forest Lodge” - A father takes his son away to a forest lodge after a fight with his wife. The boy begins to see a disturbing ghost that seems to take interest in him. This spooky ghost story has a great twist ending.

• “The Animal Game” – A support group plays a game where they pick an animal that most represents them. The game has unexpected and terrifying results. A great concept masterfully realized.

• “An Afternoon with Danny” – A young, divorced father delights in the time spent with his toddler son at Pirate World. The fun day turns grim when a dark presence makes its presence felt.

• “The Pennine Tower Restaurant” – An unusual architectural tower has a bizarre and dangerous history. All the deaths, disappearances, and ethereal glimpses that revolve around the structure are documented here. This riveting tale, presented as fact, comes complete with detailed, collaborating footnotes.

• “The Church on the Island” – This story was nominated for the 2008 World Fantasy Award for best short story. It’s about a woman on vacation in Greece who becomes obsessed with a lonely church built on a small island nearby. She swims there and is met by the caretaker, who shows her the secret purpose behind the church’s existence.

-- MATT COWAN

PH4Q: Elizabeth Massie

2011-01-29T07:36:00.001-06:00

1. Why horror fiction?

Good horror fiction delves into some of the deepest human emotions; it strips away the facades of life and leaves the characters (and the readers) face to face with some of the most basic conflicts to be found. When done well, it pits humans against their greatest fears and gives them the opportunity to rise or fall.

2. Your top five horror authors?

Oh, geez, only five? Okay, but I'm having to leave off some great ones: Stephen King, Thomas Tryon, Lisa Mannetti, Gary Braunbeck, Rick Hautala

3. Your top five horror books?

Again, just five? You're a mean man, David! Okay: THE OTHER (Tryon), RED DRAGON (Harris), MAGIC (Goldman), THE STAND (King), THE ROAD (McCarthy)

4. Recommend one of your own books as a first choice for new readers.

SINEATER. It was a 1993 Bram Stoker Award winner, available now as an e-book and audio book from Crossroad Press, and a new paperback edition by Dark House Press trade paperback through Completely Novel: http://www.completelynovel.com/books/120013/buys/new

HIS FATHER’S SON by Bentley Little

2011-01-22T13:42:00.000-06:00

Bentley Little is one of those horror writers that I somehow never get around to reading. I have several of his books on my shelves but I’m ashamed to say that most of them have been sitting there untouched for years. In fact the only ones I’d read previously were THE MAILMAN and EVIL DEEDS and although I enjoyed both those books, they were some of his earliest and it showed in the simple narratives. So when I got my hands on one of his most recent releases I decided to put everything else on hold and make the effort to read it. I was also keen to see how Little had developed as a writer over the past two decades. I wasn’t disappointed. The quirky originality he displayed in those early works has blossomed into full blown perversity.

HIS FATHER’S SON is the story of Steve Nye, an aspiring horror writer stuck in a dead end job in southern California. Steve is the product of a dysfunctional family and although he has buddies and a girlfriend, he spends most of his time drifting through life without feeling much of anything. When his father is diagnosed with dementia after suffering a stroke, Steve’s visits to the hospital are more out of a sense of obligation than genuine desire. But when his father makes a series of chilling remarks about his past, Steve becomes convinced that the old man wasn’t always the conservative citizen he appeared to be but once led a double life as a serial killer, murdering at random throughout different cities and constantly keeping his family on the move to avoid detection. After his father’s death, Steve becomes obsessed with this secret past and resolves to prevent anyone from discovering the truth, even if it means following in his father’s footsteps.

Steve Nye is both protagonist and antagonist. A man not only haunted by his father’s ghost but by bad dreams involving sinister clowns that seem to be coming to life. His descent into madness should be horrifying but we are drawn into his head with such skill and subtlety that reader and character merge as one, something that makes the most awful actions seem rational and reasonable, thus numbing us to the transition from ordinary man to monster.

Little’s straight forward prose style makes for a deceptively clever novel and his wild imagination and twisted characters give it gripping power. Like such greats as King and Laymon before him, Little has that elusive quality that is the holy grail of all writers: sheer readability. The kind of writing that doesn’t get in the way of the story but only serves to facilitate it.

HIS FATHER’S SON is a fascinating story of one man’s journey through his own dark psychology and the satisfaction I derived from it has ensured that the other Bentley Little books sitting on my shelf will not remain unread for much longer.

--JAMES CARROLL

AS I EMBRACE MY JAGGED EDGES by Lee Thompson

2011-01-19T18:21:00.000-06:00

To call this novella impressive is an understatement. Lee Thompson's prose is electric, captivating, and at times poetic. The reader is invited into a vivid world, fully realized, that's populated by characters both believable and sympathetic. The author deftly constructs a story that gains momentum throughout, leaving one on the verge of breathlessness by story's end, but what really makes AS I EMBRACE MY JAGGED EDGES tick is the masterful use of Jewish mythology as the vehicle behind the story's raison d'etre that puts one in mind of Steve Stern's Yiddish folklore stories.

Young Boaz is a terrific protagonist, flawed and self-doubting, but charged with a responsibility to guard and protect an ancient relic. As he struggles with his inner demons--the weight of his homosexuality and how it's instructed his family dynamic--he is forced to confront outer demons as well and Thompson shines in playing off the subtleties and subtext while producing a complex and original thriller.

AS I EMBRACE MY JAGGED EDGES (Sideshow Press) is a brilliant tale that I cannot recommend highly enough.

--BOB FREEMAN

APPARITIONS by Raven Bower

2011-01-16T07:54:00.000-06:00

Raven Bower’s debut novel APPARITIONS originally came out in 2007 to high praise (averaging a 5-star review on Amazon). Now a revised version is being republished, this time by Under the Moon, LLC. The story centers on Bailey Kane, a successful writer of murder novels who lives in a secluded lakeside cabin in Michigan. Unknown to most is the fact she is visited by the ghosts of women murdered by a depraved serial killer and “shown” their final moments. She only gains respite from these specters by writing about their traumatic end. She changes the names and places, but that doesn’t stop a private investigator named Andy from recognizing details from his sister’s murder in Bailey’s work. He isn’t the only one taking an interest in her however, as the murderer himself sets his sites on Bailey Kane. If that weren’t enough, the increasingly aggressive spectral victims expect the one woman able to see them to act on their behalf to halt the killings. Bailey soon finds herself facing an ever tightening web of danger from all sides.

This is a riveting tale of supernatural horror that blends romance, mystery and action with well developed characters throughout. Raven Bower hits on all cylinders here. The horror elements are chilling; in particular is a scene on the lake that may cause you to second guess that next trip on the water. Her ability to make secondary characters interesting is a tremendous strength. I often found these fringe characters so interesting I wanted them to take on a bigger role. This in no way implies a weakness in the main characters, just the opposite. Bailey Kane is a great protagonist who finds her supernatural abilities to be a burden despite the financial benefits she’s gained from them. The story moves fast and keeps the intensity up as the threats zero in on Bailey. Her adversaries are varied enough she can’t defend against them all with her usual defenses, be it sea salt around her doors, silver doorknobs or even her guard dog Thor. A sequel to this book is scheduled to be released in early 2011 titled WENDIGO. Based on the strength of APPARITIONS, I’m looking forward to it with great anticipation.

--MATT COWAN

Jon F. Merz: THE KENSEI Interview

2011-01-13T17:58:00.001-06:00

PH: How similar are you to your character Lawson in regard to philosophy and combat skills?

JFM: Fairly similar. Lawson obviously has greater experience applying his skills in real-world, er...his world...situations, but his level of training is much the same as mine. Lawson's been studying ninjutsu for twenty years and so have I. Overall, I've been studying fighting for more than 26 years, so we're similar in what we've been exposed to as far as various martial art systems. In THE KENSEI, Lawson undergoes the same test I took in February 2003 when I was in Japan for training with the grandmaster of ninjutsu. I've certainly been in a generous serving of hostile situations, but nowhere near as many (fortunately) as Lawson.

As far as Lawson's philosophy, it was based at least initially on many of my own beliefs, and I think we're fairly in synch with each other. But he does surprise me from time to time when I'm writing a stream of conversation. I don't think that's a bad thing - it keeps the material fresh.

PH: How did you first get into martial arts? Was it movies?

JFM: Bullies. I was picked on a lot as a kid. I didn't gain any height until I was well into high school and I was fairly well marked through junior high and into high school. FInally, at 15, I got tired of putting up with it. I started researching fighting, but the thought of it terrified me. One of my memories is of me complaining to my father about being picked on, so he taught me to deliver an uppercut to the diaphragm, telling me that it would stop their breathing momentarily. Instead of galvanizing me, it freaked me out. I didn't want to kill them, after all. Obviously, I understand what he meant now, but at the time, it scared the crap out of me, so I endured the bullying for several more years.

Flipping through the pages of Black Belt, I came across an article about ninja and found myself wishing I could do what they supposedly could: disappear in a puff of smoke, take on multiple enemies, use the night, and bend time and space. How cool would that be to employ against the bullies in my life? But at the time, ninjutsu wasn't being taught in my area, so I had to content myself with other styles like Tae Kwon Do, Aikido, Kung Fu and others. I appreciate it all the more now since having a broad base to draw from is always useful in fighting.

But movies certainly also played a part in my interest. Enter The Ninja and the other Sho Kosugi movies, stereotypically bad as they were, fueled my desire to learn this mystical art.

PH: You write a quick-paced and engaging novel. Which authors have had the strongest impact on your own writing style?

JFM: I grew up devouring the likes of Tolkien, Asimov, and Clarke, among other SF and Fantasy authors, but I owe the pacing in my writing to the pulp/mystery authors I started reading much later. Folks like Robert B. Parker, Robert Leslie Bellem, Mickey Spillane and many more helped shape my prose. But I don't want to discount the effect that all of the authors I grew up reading had on me. Each of them fed into my imagination and helped propel me to the eventual point where I wanted to create my own adventures for people to read and enjoy. I've never pretended that I write literary masterpieces; I write entertainment. if I'm able to give people an escape from their daily lives - even for a few stolen minutes each day - then I consider my job done. I save my literary aspirations for my short stories like "Prisoner 392." I spend a lot more time on crafting imagery and the like in the close confines of a story, rather than in the novel. But that's just me.

PH: Lawson is a series character. Where can readers find your other vampire novels in this series, after they’ve devoured THE KENSEI?

JFM: Unfortunately, the first four books are currently out-of-print. (Which is probably a good thing, because I'd dearly like to have a fresh editor go over them and help make them better.) So what I've been telling everyone is to buy a copy of THE KENSEI - my editor and I worked hard to make it a standalone novel; you don't need to read 1-4 to have a great time with it - and then tell their friends and family to buy copies as well. If St. Martin's sees a strong sell-through for this title, then I'm certain we'll bring back 1-4 and many more installments besides. My editor loves the series and Lawson; it's just a matter of convincing the higher-ups to get a new contract in place. And nothing convinces them like big strong sales numbers.

PH: There’s a nice portion of detail in THE KENSEI. How long do you research before writing a novel?

JFM: In some ways, the research that went into THE KENSEI is the culmination of the twenty years I've been training in ninjutsu. My experiences in the art - separating the fact from the fiction, sorting out the idiots from those who actually know how to fight, traveling to Japan and training there - all figured greatly into the pages of THE KENSEI. Lawson sees Japan very much through my eyes; his eye for detail comes from what I've seen over the course of trips to the homeland of ninjutsu. It can be a very surreal country and at the same time, very wondrous.

PH: What do you have planned for Lawson in the future, and what other writing projects are you working on?

JFM: St. Martin's commissioned me to write a special Lawson e-story called "Dead Drop" for folks who purchase THE KENSEI. I believe that will be available in February. The story is done, but it's taking them some time to get it produced, apparently. Additionally, my newsletter, Boston Nocturne, is running a free serialized Lawson adventure called MISSION: MALTA over the course of 2011. And, of course, I'm working on getting THE FIXER television series off the ground. It's an independent TV show - we're operating outside of the Hollywood system and have assembled a great cast and crew. Brandon Stumpf stars as Lawson and you can see him in the book trailer for THE KENSEI. We expect to begin shooting the pilot in the first quarter of 2011.

Outside of Lawson, I have a MG/YA series currently being shopped around by my agent Joe Monti at Barry Goldblatt Literary. It's called THE NINJA APPRENTICE and is very much the boys' adventure series I always wished I could have found growing up. It's filled with all sorts of ninja goodness and fast-paced espionage adventures. I'm hoping to write nine books in that series.

PH: Is there anything else you’d like to say to Page Horrific readers before you go?

JFM: Just be sure to grab a copy of THE KENSEI. It's extremely rare for a series to be dropped by one publisher only to find new life at another (far better, in my opinion, ahem) publishing house, so I'm determined not to see it dropped again. I hope your readers enjoy the book for the fast-paced thrill ride it is. And don't forget to grab a subscription to my free newsletter by going to my website at http://jonfmerz.net.

See details about a contest Jon is running here: http://jonfmerz.net/2011/01/10/7-days-a-newsletter-a-contest/.

[Jon F. Merz interviewed by David T. Wilbanks]

Citizen Zombie

2011-01-08T14:47:00.000-06:00

Lately, it seems you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting some pop culture manifestation regarding zombies. Movies, video games, books and particularly small press anthologies seem to have been infected with this morbid theme. This recurring obsession left me with an echoing question (ala the clarion call in 1985’s RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD): Whhhhhhhyyyyyyyyy?

Pop culture zombies throughout the ages are nothing new. Humans have probably dreamed about reanimating the dead since we first discovered free will, self-awareness and the opposable thumb (possibly the second original male thought after masturbation). THE EPIC OF GILGAMESH, one of the earliest known forms of literature tells of the goddess Ishtar allowing the netherworld’s dead to go eat the living: zombies. Lazarus was reanimated in the Bible as was Jesus: zombies. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein Monster was a cobbled-together human, zapped back to semi-life: zombie. The actual phrase ‘zombie’ probably originated with the West African and Niger-Congo vodon religions and legends of reanimation after death.

More contemporarily, TIME Magazine credits W. B Seabrook’s THE MAGIC ISLAND for introducing the term ‘zombi’ into the U. S. lexicon, in 1929. H. P. Lovecraft plucked at the stitches of FRANKENSTEIN, further evolving the concept in the 1930’s. Movies, comics and popular literature advanced and mutated the genre over the decades, bringing us to Romero‘s 1968 genre-redefining hit NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD; although arguably, Richard Matheson‘s I AM LEGEND (1954) and the subsequent Vincent Price thriller THE LAST MAN ON EARTH (1964) were laudable forerunners. Most modern zombie iterations feature a nod in some form or fashion to the Romero film and its myriad sequels. The theme has been alternately played for gruesome laughs (MY BOYFRIEND‘S BACK, SHAUN OF THE DEAD); influenced music (Rob Zombie, Cranberries, Michael Jackson’s THRILLER, and John Fogerty’s underrated 1986 terrorism allegory, EYE OF THE ZOMBIE); and spawned some compelling reading (Brian Keene’s THE RISING, WORLD WAR Z by Max Brooks, and Mark Justice and David T. Wilbanks’ DEAD EARTH series [! - Ed.]).

Now that the tedious, Google-fueled exposition is out of the way, we return to our original question: WHHHHYYYYYY? Er, why is today’s society so obsessed with zombies?

Evidently, this phenomenon has become something of a wet dream for psychologists and philosophers, debating endlessly collective mentality and theorizing with thought experiments vis-à-vis the identity of mind versus brain.

Being a simple layman of lower octane mental prowess, I believe society’s entertainment often reflects problems it fears and/or cannot readily solve. Plus, the zombie is a logical allegory for society’s ills and terrors. Wars, chaos after natural disasters, and the rise of extremist mass hive-mind cultism are terrifying; rioting at a soccer match or flash mobs at local malls less so, but aren’t they all real-world examples of the seeming simplicity the dangerously thin patina of civilization can be peeled away from our fellow humans and ultimately, ourselves?

Or just maybe, we’ve become enthralled by the satisfyingly simple, final solution of the well-executed head shot.

--WALT HICKS

PH4Q: Gary McMahon

2011-01-02T14:36:00.000-06:00

1. Why horror fiction?

Why not horror fiction? I don't set out to write a horror story, it's just the way they come out. I just start writing the stories that demand to be told, and they're always dark, usually with fantastical elements. I can't not write horror: it's how I'm wired. I feel that horror is an emotion, and a way of seeing the world, rather than a specific genre of fiction.

2. Your top five horror authors?

That's easy: Ramsey Campbell, Stephen King, Dennis Etchison, Joel Lane, Robert Aickman.

3. Your top five horror books?

Today those would be: PET SEMATARY by Stephen King, NEEDING GHOSTS by Ramsey Campbell, THE ROAD by Cormac McCarthy, A CHILD ACROSS THE SKY by Jonathan Carroll, and the short story collection DEMONS BY DAYLIGHT by Ramsey Campbell. That list will have changed by tomorrow.

4. Recommend one of your own books as a first choice for new readers.

My current novel, PRETTY LITTLE DEAD THINGS. It covers all the bases regarding my favourite themes and obsessions, and is, in my opinion anyway, probably the best thing I've written to date.

Gary McMahon is the author of the "Pretty Little Dead Things", published by Angry Robot. He has more novels, and short stories, due out later this year, including a sequel to that book and the first of the Concrete Grove novels for Solaris Books. www.garymcmahon.com

WHAT THEY HEAR IN THE DARK by Gary McMahon

2010-12-30T20:06:00.001-06:00

WHAT THEY HEAR IN THE DARK by Gary McMahon is the inaugural release from Spectral Press, and they could not have gotten off to a better start.

The novella is a carefully crafted, slow burn of dread and suspense, told from the POV of Rob, half of a heart-broken couple mourning the untimely loss of their son. McMahon adeptly paints his characters quickly and with beautiful economy, and the reader feels almost like a voyeur observing their tormented bereavement so intimately. The wife and mother Becky is revealed in quietly morose layers that are particularly poignant. Overwhelming grief and pain, along with a number of atmospherically concise metaphorical devices are wonderfully melded, his spot-on dialogue contributes to the dark tone. McMahon’s deft eloquence is ideal for this type of ‘quiet’ horror tale, and his pitch perfect pacing to a heart-rending denouement is breath-taking.

Spectral Press’ mission statement of nodding to “classic ghost/horror stories written by some of the great”(s) is well-realized here, and I was reminded somewhat of the late, great Charles L. Grant with this offering.

The cover art for the chapbook is also appropriately understated, and the interior layout is easy on the eyes and comfortable to read. There were a couple of misused semicolons and a double tab in one paragraph, in the version I read, but otherwise the novella was extremely well-edited.

Much of the material I have read lately is of the “in your face” variety of horror, descriptive, violent and gruesome--and there’s nothing wrong with that at all, particularly if well done. However, if you have a passion for literate, darkly atmospheric tales told without the necessity for gore and violence, then Spectral Press’ WHAT THEY HEAR IN THE DARK is precisely your cup of hemlock.

--WALT HICKS

PH4Q: Steve Duffy

2010-12-27T16:39:00.000-06:00

1. Why horror fiction?

Because once you accept that there's nothing to be ashamed about in writing (or reading!) so-called "genre" fiction, then it becomes clear that there are lots of things you can do with the form. At its best, it can be used to showcase some startlingly intelligent and thought-provoking points of view. At its worst, well, let's not go there. But the worst examples of ANY genre deserve to be avoided - there's nothing inherently inferior about ours, is my point.

2. Your top five horror authors?

The first name that comes to mind is Peter Straub, for sure - he's the daddy of us all. Robert Aickman at his best was untouchable: once read, never forgotten. Shirley Jackson was amazing, and M.R. James remains a constant inspiration. And though he's disappointed me as many times as he's knocked my socks off, I'm going to have to throw Stephen King in there as Number Five. Etc, etc, etc, of course.

3. Your top five horror books?

I did wonder whether to cheat and go for mega-anthologies all the way so as to fit in more variety, but instead I came up with these:

Peter Straub: HOUSES WITHOUT DOORS
Peter writes great novels, but I was particularly inspired by the short stories collected here.

Robert Aickman: DARK ENTRIES
I could have chosen almost any of Aickman's collections. This was the first one I read.

Shirley Jackson: THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE
The supernatural novel against which all other supernatural novels of the 20th century must be measured.

M.R. James: COLLECTED GHOST STORIES
The supernatural short-story collection against which... (see above)

Alberto Manguel (ed.): BLACK WATER
This was just such a total inspiration, in terms of the scope of what you could do with weird fiction.

4. Recommend one of your own books as a first choice for new readers.

Actually, I think my next book (THE MOMENT OF PANIC, due out next year) contains my best work yet, but since time travel isn't really an option for potential purchasers I'll recommend my latest, TRAGIC LIFE STORIES, out now from Ash-Tree Press. Just follow the link, folks: http://tinyurl.com/345cta8

Steve Duffy’s stories have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies in Europe and North America. 2011 sees the publication of his fourth collection of short fiction, THE MOMENT OF PANIC (which includes the International Horror Guild award-winning tale, “The Rag-and-Bone Men”).

DESPERATE SOULS (The Jake Helman Files) by Greg Lamberson

2010-12-22T17:16:00.000-06:00

DESPERATE SOULS picks up where PERSONAL DEMONS left off. Almost a year later, hard boiled Jake Helman is a private eye trying to put the pieces of his life back together following his run-in with Nicholas Tower and the demon Cain.

But there's no rest for Helman. Caught up in a drug lord's bid to overtake New York with a hopped up zombie assassin army and whole lot of dark voodoo, Jake's forced to overcome madness and mayhem on an epic scale as he fights to put an end to this madman's quest and come out with his sanity intact.

Make no mistake about it, Greg Lamberson's second outing into the world of Jake Helman is breathtaking and relentless. This is the occult detective genre done right, with finesse, charm, and non-stop action from an author at the top of his game. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Lamberson's literary approach is cinematic, bold, and an all or nothing bombastic
explosion of thrills, chills, and heart pumping storytelling.

--BOB FREEMAN

Christmas Spirits

2010-12-17T18:37:00.001-06:00

“There’ll be scary ghost stories and tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago.” – from the song "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year."

Many traditions associated with Christmas have disappeared over time. One of my favorites is the telling of ghost stories. Long ago this was done while huddled around the burning Yule log during long winter nights. A CHRISTMAS CAROL by Charles Dickens (1843) is one of the few remnants of this lost practice. Dickens wrote other Christmas ghost stories but none have endured like the classic tale of Scrooge and his spectral visitations on Christmas Eve. Many don’t realize the bone-chilling tales of M.R. James were originally written for his legendary Christmas season readings to honor the tradition. Here is a list of some great Christmas-themed horror tales to enjoy:

“The Story of the Goblin who Stole a Sexton” by Charles Dickens (1836) – A grave digger who delights in dashing the festive spirit of others is confronted by a horde of goblins in the graveyard where he is working on Christmas Eve. They torment him and show him the error of his ways while leap-frogging tombstones and scaring him near to death.

“The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall” by John Kendrick Bangs (1894) - The ghost of a woman, composed of water, haunts many generations of a family connected with Harrowby Hall for one hour every Christmas Eve, wherever they may be.

“The Great Staircase at Landover Hall” by Frank R. Stockton (1900) – This one contains no evil ghost as it tells the story of a lonely, young man who buys an old house. He finds it’s haunted by the ghost of a beautiful woman that appears on the majestic staircase for an hour every Christmas Eve.

“Smee” by A.M. Burrage (1931) – A group plays a game on Christmas Eve similar to hide and seek but done without knowing who they are seeking. In this story it’s played in a darkened house, and they seem to have acquired an unknown extra player.

“Calling Card” by Ramsey Campbell (1980) - A woman receives a mysterious, unsigned Christmas card with a message that reads: “A Very Harried Christmas and No New Year.” The image of a snowy church hill has a new grave inked upon it. She begins to receive strange gifts of scuttling things among other portents of impending doom.

“Red Christmas” by David S. Garnett (1985) – A police detective spends little time at home with his wife during a cold Christmas season because of a rash of seemingly motiveless murders. In each case the victim had unlocked the door to their assailant. Their Christmas decorations were knocked about, but nothing was stolen. The answer to the mystery is an interesting concept and ties in with a common Christmas tradition.

--MATT COWAN

PH4Q: Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.

2010-12-14T18:53:00.000-06:00

1. Why horror fiction?

Bit hard—deep[!!!] at an early age and stuck. All those Universal monsters [Frankenstein!!!] and the dark elements of The Twilight Zone would not leave me… & I love 3am dead of night noir and it makes [to me] the perfect bedfellow for horror... Lastly, Night’s poetry – lonesome braided to roiling desire, what a rich loam…Caligari, the King in Yellow, Bloch, moonlight, crypts, the flutter of black wings, Horror is the only place to be! !!

2. Your top five horror authors?

1 - BLOCH!!! Jack, Norman, Juliette, you can’t get any better than that!!! Bloch owes me a lot of nights' sleep [and he should have to pay those old power bills!!! Almost went broke keeping the lights on all night]…
2 - Laird Barron / Kiernan [TIE!!!]
3 - Ligotti
4 - Liz Hand
5 - Joe R. Lansdale / the Poe Eddie [tie]

I don’t read as much horror as I should. After 4+ decades it’s hard to get “real” chills. But Laird, Kiernan, Hand, and Joe R. can and do!

3. Your top five horror books?

RWC – THE KING IN YELLOW
Ligotti – THE NIGHTMARE FACTORY
Bloch – PSYCHO [still the benchmark!!!]
Laird Barron – THE IMAGO SEQUENCE [OCCULTATION is a gem too, but one never forgets their 1st dance!!!]
the Poe Eddie – COMPLETE WORKS

4. Recommend one of your own books as a first choice for new readers.

BLOOD WILL HAVE ITS SEASON. Poetics, noir, madness, you get a true sense of Pulver [whomever that is] :) I hope…

Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. is the acclaimed author of the Lovecraftian novel NIGHTMARE'S DISCIPLE, and he has written many short stories that have appeared in magazines and anthologies. His first short story collection, BLOOD WILL HAVE ITS SEASON (Hippocampus Press, 2009), was published to wide acclaim. SIN & ASHES (Hippocampus Press, 2010) is his new collection. http://thisyellowmadness.blogspot.com/

News from Spectral Press

2010-12-11T16:21:00.001-06:00

"Spectral Press is a brand new imprint, inspired in part by a love of good, well-told stories, also by the idea that books are very much worthy objects in themselves, indeed items very much to be cherished. Spectral is also inspired by the classic ghost/horror stories written by some of the great late 19th/early 20th century practitioners of the art, people like Algernon Blackwood, Arthur Machen, MR James, HP Lovecraft, and Edgar Allan Poe. Consequently, Spectral Press will be devoted to presenting single-story chapbooks, in the ghostly/supernatural vein, in a high-quality but very classic format. Each will be in strictly limited quantities of 100 only, signed and numbered by the author. There will be some familiar names, others not so familiar: but they all have great storytelling in common and are very much in the vanguard of the modern genre scene - people such as Gary McMahon, Gary Fry, Cate Gardner, Paul Finch, Simon Kurt Unsworth, Alison Littlewood, Thana Niveau and a host of others.

So, why launch yet another small-press imprint? Well, we here at Spectral Press believe there’s always room for another quality premium press out there, one that presents brilliant short ghostly/supernatural story writing in the classic vein in a stylish package. Buying a Spectral Press chapbook won’t break the bank either, whilst simultaneously being uncompromising on that all-important watchword of QUALITY. Atmospheric covers and clear printing, allied to some of the best genre writing around today, combine to make Spectral a very special and must-have library of the macabre and spooky indeed.

Each of these little gems will retail at a mere £3 each (plus 50p p+p) and can be bought either singly or, alternatively, through a yearly subscription of just £10 (three issues–inclusive of postage). The very first chapbook, Gary McMahon’s What They Hear in the Dark, is already well on its way and will be ready in January, with Gary Fry’s The Abolisher of Roses to follow in May.

For further details about Spectral Press, like what’s due in 2011 and 2012, or to order chapbooks or a subscription, visit spectralpress.wordpress.com or contact the publisher, Simon Marshall-Jones, at spectralpress@gmail.com."

DESIREE by Ken Goldman

2010-12-09T17:49:00.000-06:00

Ken Goldman’s novella DESIREE from Damnation Books follows the titular character from a suckling newborn through a frightful puberty into an even worse young adulthood. The set-up is a familiar one, mining early to mid Stephen King with weird mothering ala CARRIE and bizarre familial relationships, specifically twins, a nod to THE DARK HALF. Familiarity doesn’t always breed contempt, however, and there are some intriguing characters here, a number of juicy plot twists, and Mr. Goldman shows definite flashes of brilliance in his descriptive prose and atmospherics.

The primary problem for this reader is character development. The main characters (as well as secondary ones) are slowly drawn in such broad strokes initially that it takes until the middle of the second act of a three act psychodrama for the reader to begin caring about any of the characters.

Then there’s the dialogue. So much of it is exposition and the reader is too clearly conscious of that. The voice of individual characters feels underdeveloped, and there’s an odd impression that dialogue and prose have been somehow reversed. Words like ‘taciturn’ and phrases like ‘cleansing vomiting of the soul’ seem jarringly out of place in some of the conversations. Dialogue that is individualized seems overly contrived.

A mash-up of italicized, parenthetic, bracketed, open and closed single/double quotation markings, is unnecessarily confusing. The reader spends too much time trying to figure out what these mean without a key code. Less here would be more.

Presentation is also a problematic. While this is mostly subjective, it is also important, because even though Damnation’s website lists this novella as “psychological horror,” a casual observer and possible buyer would never be able to discern that via the cover. The base cover shot is a good one, and with subtle graphic changes (a single tear of blood trailing from behind the dark hair, a drop of blood on the full lips, a ghosted skull over half the face, faint outlines of jagged teeth behind the lips, etc.) it could be a great one. The font is uninspired, giving the impression of a tawdry romance novel. With hundreds of thousands of fonts available, a more suitable one surely could’ve been found. Inside, a flowing cursive is found in headers and chapter lead-ins throughout, setting the wrong mood. The layout and interior font is comfortable to read, but title and byline headers unnecessarily clutter the acknowledgement, dedication, and chapter opening pages, leaving the impression of a rush to publish. There are also a modicum of grammatical and spelling errors (e.g. ‘Volkswagon’ for ‘Volkswagen’ throughout) but no more than in most small press offerings and in many, more mainstream releases.

In short, DESIREE feels like a first draft synopsis for a novel. With polish and more attention to structure, this novella could be quite enjoyable, and perhaps even grow into a very good novel, provided that it veers away from becoming another paean to, or pastiche of, Stephen King‘s work.

However, in its current edition, I cannot recommend DESIREE.

--WALT HICKS

THE SEVENTH BLACK BOOK OF HORROR, selected by Charles Black

2010-12-07T18:31:00.001-06:00

This collection is a wonderful example of how effective quieter horror can be in the hands of talented writers. There’s also a nice cohesion here with shared themes and an overall atmosphere of creeping dread that makes each story seem like part of a greater whole.

Thana Niveau opens with a brooding story about a man on holiday in southern England who becomes increasingly estranged from both his wife and reality in "The Pier."

Reggie Oliver’s "Minos or Rhadamanthus" is a haunting tale of a young solider returning from war who stops by his old school to reflect on the punishments meted out by a cruel teacher and "Morning's Echo" by Joel Lane is a poignant little piece where a policeman becomes romantically involved with the former lover of a murdered gang leader. John Llewellyn Probert’s "It Begins at Home" explores the ethical dilemma of a man drowning in debt whose only hope of relief lies in abandoning his morality while Gary Power takes the old trope of the gypsy curse and turns it into an absorbing whodunit in "Flitchling's Revenge."

David Williamson’s "Rest in Pieces" sees a mortician’s wife nag her husband beyond the limits of his endurance with horrifying results and "Walk to the Sea" by Rog Pile involves a shadowy figure that pursues a woman through a deserted village after she discovers a corpse in a rock pool. "Romero's Children" by David A. Riley is a post-apocalyptic zombie story with an unexpected twist while "The Green Bath" by Paul Finch sees another couple on holiday in a sexually charged story where the proprietors of a dilapidated hotel are not what they seem. "Telling" by Steve Rasnic Tem is about the crumbling sanity of an eccentric artist whose latest painting appears to be evolving on its own after she moves into a rundown house with her husband followed by Stephen Volk’s "Swell Head," a standout tale of a boy who becomes bedridden for life after his head grows to a colossal size.

In "Walking the Dyke" by Alex Langley a journalist gets more than she bargains for when she goes in search of a legendary horror writer and Anna Taborska’s "The Creaking" has superstitious villagers accuse a female healer of witchcraft after a local boy disappears. James Stanger’s "Bernard Bought the Farm" is a shocking tale of animal cruelty and sexual depravity that is without a doubt the anthology’s most powerful while "Ted's Collection" by Claude Lalumiere is the bizarre tale of a young man obsessed with collecting body parts and a girl who needs parts of herself amputated in order to feel whole. Craig Herbertson has a faculty speculating whether their latest colleague will survive a hostile student body in "New Teacher" and Tony Richards brings us full circle with a return to a desolate pier on the English coast in "The In-Betweeners," a dark tale of delinquent children with surreal imagery and shades of Lovecraft that’s yet another standout in this highly recommended collection.

--JAMES CARROLL

SANDMAN SLIM by Richard Kadrey

2010-12-05T19:00:00.001-06:00

I stumbled across this title on Amazon. It was one of those "Hey, folks who are into the same weird stuff as you also bought this book" recommendations. For once, Amazon was spot on!

James Stark just escaped from Hell. Literally. He was sent there eleven years ago by others in his group of magic practitioners. Stark was the first and only living human being to arrive in Hell. During his time there, he was tortured and abused, then made to fight as a gladiator for the amusement of the Hellions. When he arrives back on Earth, he finds his strength, speed, and reflexes have increased dramatically due to his training "Downtown." He has become almost (but not quite) impossible to kill. Any time he is injured, he becomes invulnerable to the same attack to the same part of his body again.

Stark's mission on Earth is to find the people who sent him to Hell and kill them. He is armed with a few special items he managed to smuggle out of Hell when he left, but is woefully behind the times. He still thinks like the 19 year old he was when he left Earth, though
biologically he's closer to 30. Los Angeles has changed in the decade he was gone. For example, Stark is shocked to learn he can't smoke in bars anymore. But he catches on quick to the changes and makes his way across the city, leaving behind a wake of bodies and destruction.

He is a complete hardass, definitely someone you want on your side in a brawl, though hopefully you've stayed on top of your property damage insurance premiums.

SANDMAN SLIM is sort of a neo-noir type book. Very well-written with compelling characters and tons of action, Kadrey keeps you turning pages long after you should have turned out the light and gone to sleep. Dirty, crass, obnoxious and seedy, this ain’t your momma’s dark fantasy type of story. Which is perfectly fine with me.

Truly an exceptional book and the first of a series. Highly recommended.

--JIM COBB

PH4Q: Wilum Hopfrog Pugmire

2010-12-03T17:27:00.000-06:00

1. Why horror fiction?

I began life as a fan of monster films, and it was my plan to become the next Boris Karloff. In Ireland as a Mormon missionary, I wasn't allowed to go see horror films at the cinema. I was in correspondence with Bob Bloch, so I began to buy anthologies that had one of his weird tales in the contents, and that got me hooked on horror fiction. I began to write and place my first weird tales while living in Omagh, Northern Ireland. Upon returning to the States I discovered Arkham House and the Mythos, and my new goal in life was to become a famous Mythos writer. Horror is the only genre that "speaks" to me as an artist, especially Lovecraftian horror.

2. Your top five horror authors?

H. P. Lovecraft
Laird Barron
Poppy Z. Brite
Edgar A. Poe
Robert Bloch

3. Your top five horror books?

My first would be the Tales of H. P. Lovecraft as they are collected in the three Penguin Classics editions. Second, THE IMAGO SEQUENCE by Laird Barron. Third, SWAMP FOETUS by Poppy Z. Brite (reprinted in mass pb as WORMWOOD). Next, the Library of America edition of Poe's Poetry & Tales. Last, Robert Bloch's THE EARLY FEARS, published in 1994 by Fedogan & Bremer and a book that should always stay in print.

4. Recommend one of your own books as a first choice for new readers.

THE TANGLED MUSE has to be my first choice, and yet it is such a limited and expensive item. For those who want a less costly first acquaintance with my weird fiction I would encourage them to buy THE FUNGAL STAIN AND OTHER DREAMS, published by Hippocampus Press, although once it is published (next year, hopefully) my second collection from Hippocampus, UNCOMMON PLACES, would be my ideal choice.

Bio: Wilum Hopfrog Pugmire has been writing Lovecraftian weird fiction since 1973. Preferring to work with small press publishers, his books include SESQAU VALLEY & OTHER HAUNTS (Delirium Books and Mythos Books), THE FUNGAL STAIN AND OTHER DREAMS (Hippocampus Press) and THE TANGLED MUSE (soon to be published by Centipede Press). He is currently writing a new collection for Arcane Wisdom Press. www.sesqua.net

Do You Believe In Magic(k)?

2010-11-30T18:34:00.000-06:00

The occult sciences are to horror fiction what butter is to bread, but sadly there are few authors who get it right.

Dealing with metaphysics and magical rites need not adhere to established documentation and research so long as there is an internal logic to the subject matter. The best writers of occult fiction--such as HP Lovecraft, Dennis Wheatley, and Manly Wade Wellman--understood this and used their imaginations, coupled with sound research, to reflect believable paranormal operations and threats. Still others--Aleister Crowley, Dion Fortune, and Katherine Kurtz for instance--took this a shade further by depicting magic(k) as it resonated with actual practitioners. The key, when dealing with the magical arts, is to work with a system that has rules and then follow them.

Here is a short list of titles you should read to see where I'm coming from:

MOONCHILD by Aleister Crowley (1917)

THE DEVIL RIDES OUT by Dennis Wheatley (1934)

LONELY VIGILS by Manly Wade Wellman (1981)

LAMMAS NIGHT by Katherine Kurtz (1983)

STORM FRONT by Jim Butcher (2000)

The age old maxim that a writer should write what they know certainly comes into play here. If you're going to tackle a subject matter as weighty as black magic, sorcery, or necromancy it is best to submerge yourself in the work and make it a part of you before you integrate it into your fiction. It's all about world-building. Verisimilitude is the magic word and its spell is captivating...

--BOB FREEMAN

THE GHOST STORIES OF EDITH WHARTON

2010-11-28T18:13:00.000-06:00

Edith Wharton was an acclaimed mainstream writer in her time, even becoming the first woman to receive a Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1920. Less known is the fact she produced a number of chilling ghost stories as well. THE GHOST STORIES OF EDITH WHARTON, put out by Scribner Paperback Fiction in 1997, contains 11 of these tales, each with an accompanying illustration. These stories have an unsettling eeriness to them. The collection includes much anthologized classics such as “The Ladies Maid’s Bell” (a new maid arrives at a house that may be haunted by the previous one), “The Eyes” (a spectral pair of eyes haunt a man), and “Afterwards” (a ghost that isn’t recognized as one upon first contact), along with other less known but equally great stories. In “The Triumph of Night” a man sees an evil doppelganger of an affluent man. “Mr. Jones” is about a woman who has inherited a house which contains a reclusive servant who seems to have lived for an impossibly long time. The protagonist in “All Souls” wakes in her bed following an ankle injury to find her house mysteriously abandoned. My favorite Wharton tale is “Pomegranate Seed”, which is about a wife’s concern when she notices her husband receiving letters periodically that may be from the man’s deceased first wife. These and the five other stories included are well worth a read to any fan of classic ghost stories.

--MATT COWAN

PH4Q: Tim Lebbon

2010-11-26T17:54:00.001-06:00

1. Why horror fiction?

Because that's the way my parents put my hat on. Really, I hate to use someone else's answer (I think it's Ramsey's, but I could be wrong), but my perfect response to this question is: Do you think I've got any choice?

2. Your top 5 horror authors.

Bloody hell. Right. Stephen King, Arthur Machen, Clive Barker, Michael Marshall Smith, Paul Meloy.

3. Your top 5 horror books.

Again, bloody hell, these are the hardest questions ever. THE STAND, THE ROAD, THE BOOKS OF BLOOD (all of them, a cheat), THE HILL OF DREAMS, THE TERROR.

4. Recommend one of your own books as a first choice for new readers.

FALLEN

Tim Lebbon is a NY Times bestselling, multi award-winning novelist and screenwriter. www.timlebbon.net

THE GIRL NEXT DOOR by Jack Ketchum

2010-11-23T18:04:00.000-06:00

It is hard to truly horrify today’s jaded readers, but author Jack Ketchum’s unflinching narratives have made him well known among horror aficionados. THE GIRL NEXT DOOR is his most notorious novel, one that succeeds by tapping a resource mostly neglected in modern fiction – reality.

THE GIRL NEXT DOOR is told by David, who was twelve years old in the 1950s when he witnessed the uninhibited abuse of his next door neighbors’ cousin, Meg. David constantly berates himself for not being able to stop the abuse, and the event has scarred him for life.

The narrative unfolds slowly, prolonging the intensity. The reader is compelled to follow along with David voyeuristically as Meg suffers shame, torment, and mutilation at the hands of those supposed to care for her. Child brutality is heard about on the news now, but in 1989, it was rare to learn about such unspeakable acts. Setting THE GIRL NEXT DOOR in an even more innocent decade makes it all the harder to stomach, and having children involved in the torture ups the shock quotient even further.

Horror fans like distance from events, either via paranormal origins or a sly wink from the author. We don’t ask for true believability, just plausibility. Jack Ketchum forces us to look at true horror up close and in the process created a modern classic, a book that changes how you see the genre.

--CRAIG CLARKE

CARNIVAL OF FEAR by J.G. Faherty

2010-11-22T18:08:00.000-06:00

When the Carnival of Fear comes to town for Hallowe'en, a group of eager teenagers get more than they bargained for when they enter the Carnival's Haunted Castle attraction. It's survival of the fittest played out on a gruesome stage as vampires, werewolves, aliens, zombies and more come to life, preying on the innocent and the damned alike...

JG Faherty's debut novel is an evocative thriller given birth by an intriguing concept - mined from equal parts Bradbury (SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES), King (IT), and Barker (NIGHTBREED) - that's fueled by a wickedly authentic narrative. CARNIVAL OF FEAR is populated by well-rendered and believable characters and a rollicking pace that keeps the reader ceremoniously glued to the page. There are no holds barred here as Faherty effortlessly invokes the proper atmosphere to lure the reader into this frightfully demonic world. A fantastic page turner, Faherty's coming out party proves to be a masterful start to what is surely a promising career.

--BOB FREEMAN

PH4Q: William Ollie

2010-11-21T18:26:00.000-06:00

1. Why horror fiction?

I grew up watching horror films, and being told some pretty weird and wonderful stories, up in West Virginia, and horror/suspense stories can be loads of fun to both read and write.

2. Your top five horror authors?

In no particular order: King and McCammon, Laymon, Little, and Joe R Lansdale--and Ed Gorman.

3. Your top five horror books?

My 5 fave books list changes every now and again. Today I remember these, next week others might pop into my head. My all time favorite is BOY'S LIFE.

BOY'S LIFE by McCammon
ISLAND by Richard Laymon
DERAILED by James Siegal
CAGE OF NIGHT by Ed Gorman
MONGSTER by Randall Boyll
DESPERATION by Stephen King

4. Recommend one of your own books as a first choice for new readers.

Readers should probably start out with SIDESHOW, as with the trade paperback and digital editions, it's the easiest to get hold of. Not only that, but it's garnered some great reviews.

Thanks for having me.

Bio: William Ollie is the author of THE DAMNED, SIDESHOW, and the upcoming Dark Regions Press title, LORD OF THE MOUNTAIN. His online presence is maintained at http://www.wmollie.com/

DEADCORE: 4 Hardcore Zombie Novellas

2010-11-20T16:27:00.002-06:00

Comet Press’ DEADCORE is a collection of four diverse zombie-themed novellas from four equally diverse and worthy voices.

The book is a handsome trade paperback, layout comfortable to read. A small number of grammatical errors might jar readers bothered by such things out of their reading experience briefly.

Randy Chandler’s “Dead Juju” is a wild, graphic ride--a fast-paced array of elements including religion, politics, race relations, news media, socio-economic classism, contumacy--all handled with skillful precision as Chandler gives us deft glimpses of humanity in all its chaotic, whacked out splendor. Nearly exhausted at the end, I wanted even more.

David James Keaton gnaws his tongue-in-cheek to a bloody stump in “Zee Bee & Bee” a slick stream-of-consciousness (consciousness? Zombies?) tale. On its surface, the snarky narrative seems almost too clever, but read beyond the obvious genre affection and surprisingly heart-felt details of everyday life and you come away with a strange nostalgia and fear for a self-absorbed culture’s obsession with their next slice of entertainment.

Modern humanity doesn’t possess the exclusive rights to mass mindlessness as feudal Japan gets the undead treatment in Edward M. Erdelac’s “Night of the Jikininki.” The nicely detailed story turns the honorable samurai legend on its stone-cold ear with some of the most loathsome characters and acts ever.

Ben Cheetham’s grim techno-hunter story “Zombie Safari” is the most conventional of the four. Although well-written and intriguing, it suffers somewhat from the originality of the stories that precede it. Suggestion: read these novellas in reverse order.

--WALT HICKS

The Nightside Series by Simon R. Green

2010-11-19T18:58:00.000-06:00

Rather than review just one of the many books in this series, I’m going to tackle the whole lot of them. Reason being, there isn’t a bad book in the bunch.

John Taylor is a private investigator. He works in the Nightside, kind of a pocket dimension that exists in the heart of London. All manner of beings populate the Nightside–gods, demons, monsters, humans. Here, it is always 3AM and death, usually in some horrific manner, can be found just around the corner.

Taylor has a gift for finding things. He also has other magical talents. But, perhaps his greatest power is his voice. He can seemingly talk his way out of almost any confrontation. And if that doesn’t work, he falls back on his wits, his talents, and his best friend Suzy Shotgun (also known as “Oh crap, its her! Run!”). While he has a heart of gold, he has a reputation made of pure meanness, much of which is actually bluff and bravado.

While each volume in the series focuses on Taylor, the Nightside itself is just as much a main character. Each story treats us to a tour of another part of town. From the Street of the Gods to back alley taverns, each new location is described in detail. The number of secondary characters is mind-boggling and yet none of them are mere paper cut-outs. My personal favorite is Razor Eddie, Punk God of the Straight Razor. Written with a lot of wry humor, the books will make you laugh as you cringe at some of the more horrific details.

These are popcorn books. Something to curl up with and just have some fun.

SOMETHING FROM THE NIGHTSIDE
AGENTS OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS
NIGHTINGALE'S LAMENT
HEX AND THE CITY
PATHS NOT TAKEN
SHARPER THAN A SERPENT'S TOOTH
HELL TO PAY
THE UNNATURAL INQUIRER
JUST ANOTHER JUDGEMENT DAY
THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UNCANNY

--JIM COBB

STORIES FOR THE END OF THE WORLD by Eric Shapiro

2010-11-18T17:52:00.000-06:00

It’s always nice to discover a talented new writer. It’s even better when you don’t have to resort to words like ‘promising’ in order to describe them because they’ve already developed into a skilled wordsmith with their own distinctive voice. But best of all is when such a talent has the emotional depth to give their work genuine resonance. That’s what the stories in this fantastic collection do. They resonate. Long after you’ve finished reading them. Resonate with echoes of ruined lives and lost loves. Heartache and pain. Madness and despair. Eric Shapiro is a real writer. Someone who shows us things about ourselves and others by laying bare the human condition. Things we may not want to see or acknowledge because they make us uncomfortable. Things that ring true.

Highlights include the excellent 'Fizz,' which explores the internecine symbiosis of psychopathic men with superficial charm and the women who become their victims. The claustrophobic intensity of 'Strawberry Man,' where four people become trapped at the top of a skyscraper after an unspecified cataclysm floods the world. The tragic complexities of an socially awkward man who becomes obsessed with a female robot in 'Days Of Allison.' And the standout novella 'It’s Only Temporary,' in which a young man is determined to drive through a world fallen into chaos in order to spend his final hours with the girl he loves before a giant meteorite hits the planet and destroys all life.

STORIES FOR THE END OF THE WORLD is invigorating contemporary fiction by a brilliant newcomer. Highly recommended.

--JAMES CARROLL

PH4Q: Laird Barron

2010-11-16T18:17:00.000-06:00

1. Why horror fiction?

It’s in the blood. I’m descended from a long line of morbid and brooding Scotch-Irish folk. Environmental factors contributed. A lot of blood was let during my youth in the black forests of Alaska. Reading Poe, Lovecraft, King, Barker, Campbell, Shea, and the like around the campfire might be a contributing influence.

2. Your top five horror authors?

Peter Straub, Michael Shea, TED Klein, HP Lovecraft, Stephen King

3. Your top five horror books?

DARK GODS by TED Klein; KOKO and GHOST STORY by Peter Straub; BLOOD MERIDIAN by Cormac McCarthy; THE AUTOPSY AND OTHER TALES by Michael Shea

4. Recommend one of your own books as a first choice for new readers.

I think it’s often best to begin at the beginning. THE IMAGO SEQUENCE AND OTHER STORIES was my first collection and speaks loudly and clearly to my roots and influences.

Bio: Laird Barron is a writer. He lives in Olympia, Washington. Live Journal home: http://imago1.livejournal.com/

MONSTER HUNTERS INTERNATIONAL by Larry Correia

2010-11-15T18:53:00.000-06:00

You’ve seen this plot before. Monsters really exist, for the most part hidden away from the day-to-day world. There also exist organizations working to protect unknowing people from these creepy crawlies. Been there, done that, right?

But, I promise you, you’ve not seen it done like this.

Owen Zastava Pitt is an accountant with a bit of a dark past. He used to fight competitively in underground MMA-style bouts. He was raised by a survivalist father who taught him how to shoot, fight, and survive. Pitt decided to turn away from his violent past and go into the most boring occupation he could think of–accounting. Boring it was until the day his boss turned into a werewolf. Pitt manages to throw him out a fourteenth floor window before passing out. He wakes up several days later in the hospital and is recruited by Monster Hunters International. They are one of the premier groups that, well, hunts monsters. Given Pitt’s background, he’s well-suited for the job and he takes to the job like an orc to a heavy metal concert (read the book and that will make perfect sense).

Author Larry Correia has a gift for dialogue and humor. While the book isn’t written tongue-in-cheek, there are several scenes where I laughed out loud. The action scenes are well thought out. The main characters are fleshed out and have believable motivations for their actions.

This isn’t a book that will scare your pants off but it is a hell of a lot of fun.

--JIM COBB

THE DIARY OF A DRUG FIEND by Aleister Crowley

2010-11-14T19:04:00.000-06:00

“People think that talking is a sign of thinking. It isn’t, for the most part’ on the contrary, it’s a mechanical dodge of the body to relieve oneself of the strain of thinking, just as exercising the muscles helps the body to become temporarily unconscious of its weight, its pain, its weariness, and the foreknowledge of its doom.”

Revisiting an old favorite, THE DIARY OF A DRUG FIEND by Aleister Crowley, in which The Great Beast masterfully reveals the true nature of addiction in all its glorious highs & malefic lows. I’d forgotten just how powerfully well this novel was written, though to call it a novel is a stretch because it is painfully obvious how near autobiographical the story is.

“The universe is the looking-glass of the soul.”

Crowley certainly has a way with words, painting the ecstasy and agony of prolific drug abuse with equal brilliance. He knows his subject well, as has been documented not only by himself but by all the various biographers that have penned this famed magical adventurer’s exploits.

“Our souls have invented our minds . . . with the object of registering conscious experiences, and therefore the more deeply an experience is felt the better our minds are carrying out the intention of our souls.”

What sets THE DIARY OF A DRUG FIEND apart, aside from its brilliant prose, is Crowley’s brutal honesty, married if you will with a desire to rise above the tethers of addiction by sheer willpower and sense of duty to the Great Work. That the Great Beast ultimately failed in wholly shedding these demons is of little consequence. The work stands as a marvelous testament to depravity and redemption.

--BOB FREEMAN

THE GRIN OF THE DARK by Ramsey Campbell

2010-11-13T11:26:00.001-06:00

Ramsey Campbell’s 2007 novel, THE GRIN OF THE DARK, begins with an unemployed writer named Simon Lester receiving a commission to write a book about a forgotten silent film star named Tubby Thackeray. Apparently, Tubby’s movies tended to drive their audience mad, which is probably what caused them to become destroyed or suppressed. As Simon strives to uncover copies of Thackeray’s films and information about him, he encounters strange, unsettling people and witnesses impossible things. Seeking assistance in his search on a message board for aficionados of such movies brings Simon into contact with the insidious Smilemime. Smilemime is the screen name of a mean-spirited taunting presence who often seems to know more than he should. As the story moves to its conclusion, the sense of dread mounts.

Campbell’s mastery of surrealism is well on display in this novel. There is a bizarre, dreamlike visit to a clown show that is bloodlessly unsettling. Another scene, involving Simon and his elderly parents exploring an abandoned movie theater where Thackeray once performed, is perhaps the scariest I’ve ever read. This is an eerie novel of surreal horror that exudes ever-mounting dread as it unfolds. It doesn’t rely on gore or shocks to pull this off. It doesn’t need it. It also introduces one of my absolute favorite antagonists in the faceless online presence of Smilemime.

--MATT COWAN

PH4Q: John Shirley

2010-11-11T15:36:00.000-06:00

1. Why horror fiction?

Because it reaches past people's defenses, it penetrates to their inner life, the core of their minds, through the opening offered by fear. Horror is metaphorical, it's a powerful way to make a statement. The best horror, like the early Clive Barker, or like Poe, or the best of Stephen King, is always about the human condition--the monster represents our fear of other people, or our fears of death itself, or perhaps it stands for self loathing. Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a symbol of ordinary people (before the invasion!) living their lives like unfeeling robotic creatures without being in touch with who they really are, and the horror that automatic, zombielike behavior can bring. In a sense, the Nazis were victims of "body snatchers", their self control taken over by a poisonous idea. Then there are books like my novel CRAWLERS, a science-fiction horror novel that's a metaphorical warning about excessive dependency on technology--but it's also a good, scary novel. The best horror is as entertaining as it's meaningful and vice versa.

2. Your top five horror authors?

John Wyndham, Clive Barker, Edgar Allan Poe, Lovecraft, Shirley Jackson.

3. Your top five horror books?

THE MIDWICH CUCKOOS, TALES OF MYSTERY AND THE IMAGINATION, THE BOOKS OF BLOOD, maybe THE SHEEP LOOK UP by Brunner--a science fiction horror work, of a sort--and a good solid volume of Lovecraft.

4. Recommend one of your own books as a first choice for new readers.

For horror readers, probably WETBONES is my best book. It's out now from eReads (both as print and download) in a new improved edition with a sequel in the same volume. Readers should read only this edition of the book. Amazon.com: Wetbones: The Authorized Edition (9781617562020): John Shirley: Books

Bio: John Shirley is the author of the novels DEMONS, CRAWLERS, WETBONES, CELLARS, and IN DARKNESS WAITING. His story collection BLACK BUTTERFLIES won the Bram Stoker Award. His new collection is IN EXTREMIS: The Most Extreme Stories of John Shirley from Underlands Press (spring 2011). http://www.darkecho.com/JohnShirley/index.html

"JASON DARK: Ghost Hunter" Tackles Bad Economy...

2010-11-10T18:15:00.000-06:00

For A Limited Time, The First Volume In The Multi-Format Dime Novel Series Is Available
For 99 Cents

LOS ANGELES, CA – Thunder Peak Publishing, a division of international content developer G3 Studios, today announced the price reduction of the digital version of “Demons Night,” the first volume in the Jason Dark: Ghost Hunter series of dime novels. Since its launch earlier this year, the series has steadily built a catalog of stories, exploring a wide variety of action-packed encounters for the super sleuth Jason Dark to solve.

“With the repricing of the first Jason Dark adventure, we are hoping to open the series up to new readers,” series creator and writer Guido Henkel said. “With the economy in shambles, every penny counts and we wanted to introduce Jason Dark to eBook readers who might so far have been undecided.”

Set amid the sinister, fog-shrouded streets of Victorian England, eight volumes of the Jason Dark supernatural mysteries have been released to date. Mirek Lipinski of Fanta Terror acclaimed the series as "sheer, joyous brilliance," and Fangoria's Chris Alexander declared it "a briskly paced pulp fiction throwback full of gothic dread and shivery intrigue."

“Demon’s Night” is available at the new reduced 99 cent price point for a limited time until the end of the year as an eBook at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple’s iBookstore, and Smashwords.

For more information about Jason Dark and his adventures, check out www.jasondarkseries.com <http://www.jasondarkseries.com> .

BRAIN CHEESE BUFFET by Edward Lee

2010-11-09T18:24:00.002-06:00

Ed Lee is the Marquis de Sade of our times, only much more entertaining. His notorious reputation has led to him being branded by many as little more than a third-rate writer of schlock horror, but don’t believe a word of it. The man is a genius, and this newly compiled collection from Deadite Press is a treasure trove of previously out of print rarities that will blow your mind.

An aging madman who dismembers women and rapes them in the name of god. A foul-mouthed amputee addicted to crystal meth and forced to make scat porn. The gruesome confessions of an undead hooker. A businessman’s secret compulsion that is so hilariously revolting it’s only rivalled three stories later by the improbable line boiling bacon grease enemas.

Crazy rednecks, psycho bitches, brutal gangsters. This superb collection has it all. Nine highly inventive and tightly plotted tales with Lee’s masterful characterisation, brilliant dialogue and trademark brand of pitch black humour holding everything together. Unfortunately there are quite a few typos scattered throughout the text, a problem that continues to plague the small press who seem unwilling or unable to invest in meticulous copy editors. But don’t let this minor problem put you off. BRAIN CHEESE BUFFET is Edward Lee at his blistering best and you’d be insane not to buy this instant classic while it’s still available and affordable. Trust me. Get it now before some enterprising soul buys up all the remaining copies and starts selling them on eBay for ten times the price.

--JAMES CARROLL

RAIJU by K.H. Koehler

2010-11-08T15:50:00.000-06:00

Kevin is a survivor of a great disaster in San Francisco. A giant monster had leveled the city, killing Kevin’s best friend among thousands of others. Moving to New York City with his father, they are trying to get a fresh start with their lives. Unfortunately for Kevin, making friends at his new school while avoiding getting into trouble is the least of his worries. He soon learns he is a Keeper, destined to play a central role in the war of the Kami. Keepers have the power to call forth their own Kami, huge and immensely powerful creatures. Side benefits are flaming hands and, at least in Kevin’s case, a mystical katana.

As Kevin tries to sort through this new development in his life, he has bigger problems. He’s fallen in love with the school’s coolest and most beautiful girl but she’s attached to the school’s toughest bully. Will she like Kevin if she learns his secret? And what is it that she is hiding about herself?

In RAIJU, the author has perfectly captured the voice of Kevin, who narrates the story. At the outset, Kevin is the epitome of the “rebel without a clue.” As the story progresses, he develops into a fully realized reluctant hero. To be honest, this is how Peter Parker would be if he were played by James Dean. While the character development is outstanding, the book really shines in the “Hulk Smash!” battle scenes. Giant monsters duking it out is just full of awesome.

--JIM COBB

THE BROADCAST by Eric Hobbs & Noel Tuazon

2010-11-07T16:34:00.000-06:00

A rural Indiana town loses power halfway through Orson Welles’ WAR OF THE WORLDS broadcast having never learned the infamous radio play is a hoax. Now, fearing the worst is upon them, four diverse families band together in an effort to make it through the night. But tensions build as differences surface, and it isn’t long before everyone involved begins to realize they have as much to fear from each other as they do the “alien invasion” heading their way.

Welcome to THE BROADCAST, a graphic novel by author Eric Hobbs and illustrator Noel Tuazon.

Noel Tuazon’s artwork is phenomenal and perfectly captures the wonderful story that Eric Hobbs has crafted. And believe me, wonderful is an understatement. Tuazon and Hobbs do a terrific job of invoking the right atmosphere and tone, setting the pace so as to let the interweaving arcs find themselves in a heartfelt and edge of your seat climax.

This is what you hope for when you dip into the indie market. Smart. Riveting. Complex. Compelling. First and foremost, THE BROADCAST is a fantastic literary work, built from a solid, poignant, and dramatic story that would work in any medium. The marvelous illustrations elevate the writing and fill the tale with an emotional resonance seldom found in comics.

This should be an instant classic and I’d be surprised if Hollywood didn’t take notice.

The Broadcast is available for pre-order at amazon.com. For more information, visit Eric Hobbs’ website http://erichobbsonline.com/blog2/.

--BOB FREEMAN

PH4Q: Kealan Patrick Burke

2010-11-06T15:30:00.001-05:00

1. Why horror fiction?

Given that I was raised by a horror-loving mother (both movies and fiction), I doubt there was ever much of a choice. I clearly recall reading King's PET SEMATARY when I was about 12. When I got to the point where Louis Creed is running through the woods and something enormous is chasing him, I remember thinking: This is what I want to do. I want to scare people the way this scared me.

2. Your top five horror authors?

That's a tough one, but off the top of my head:

Stephen King
John Connolly
Charles L. Grant
Michael Marshall Smith
Peter Straub

3. Your top five horror books?

Again, it's tough because like the previous question, the answers change every few years, but for now:

GHOST STORY
IT
I AM LEGEND
'SALEM'S LOT
THE SHINING

4. Recommend one of your own books as a first choice for new readers.

I would recommend THE TURTLE BOY, which seems to be a favorite. It's been out of print for a long time, but I've recently made it available on Amazon.com as an e-book for anyone who cares to give it a shot.

Bio: Kealan Patrick Burke is the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of five novels, including the forthcoming KIN. Visit him on the web at www.kealanpatrickburke.com

FUNGUS OF THE HEART by Jeremy C. Shipp

2010-11-05T18:07:00.000-05:00

This is one of the strangest collections I’ve read in years, a kaleidoscope of Alice in Wonderland style weirdness that is at times strikingly original yet frustratingly inchoate. Most of the thirteen stories are too abstract for their own good, the vague plotlines further hampered by characters and concepts that momentarily appear at random only to vanish again without further mention. Other characters and concepts seem to reappear throughout in slightly altered forms, which only make these warped fairytales feel more like fragments of a novel as opposed to individual tales in their own right. The result is stories that often lack satisfying conclusions.

Shipp relies too heavily on dialogue to drive his narratives but when he occasionally mixes it up with some exposition, we see flashes of brilliance that indicate he has the potential to become a great writer. These stories aren’t horror or dark fiction. I’m not even sure if dark fantasy is an appropriate description. Rather it seems as though Shipp has almost created a genre of his own. There’s some nice ideas at work here. Things involving stolen memories and renegade gnomes. Living sex dolls and surrealist wars fought by mad generals and soldiers who might be dreaming they’re someone else. FUNGUS OF THE HEART is an uneven collection but it still has a lot to offer, and when Shipp keeps his focus intact with such hardboiled tales of dystopian sci-fi noir as "The Sun Never Rises in the Big City" and "Kingdom Come," he shows blazing ability.

--JAMES CARROLL

DYING TO LIVE by Dr. Kim Paffenroth

2010-11-04T16:56:00.000-05:00

Zombie novels are a dime a dozen as of late. You can’t swing a dead cat around in a bookstore without a zombie book jumping up to eat the cat’s brain. As with any other subgenre, many of the books are average at best and there are a few standouts. DYING TO LIVE is one of the latter.

Jonah Caine was at sea when the zombie infestation began. His search for his family upon arriving back to the mainland eventually brings him to a small community of survivors who have holed up in a museum. A former soldier provides them with protection while they are led by a philosopher who is determining the rules for this new society. This book is rather different from most zombie stories in that the zombies are almost secondary to the plot. Rather, the focus is on building a cohesive community from the remnants of the past while never forgetting how the world has changed.

Intelligently written with a fair amount of action and gore as well as delving into deeper issues, I’d highly recommend this book. It isn’t just your normal zombie gore fest. It is a gore fest that includes a deep examination of good versus evil in the human condition. Thought provoking and entertaining.

--JIM COBB

PH4Q: Ray Garton

2010-11-03T19:06:00.000-05:00

1. Why horror fiction?

Because I was raised a Seventh-day Adventist and horror is what I know most.

2. Your top five horror authors?

Richard Matheson
Stephen King
Peter Straub
Graham Masterton
Robert McCammon

3. Your top five horror books?

THE SHINING - King
GHOST STORY - Straub
THEY THIRST - McCammon
HELL HOUSE - Matheson
CHARNEL HOUSE - Masterton

Note: Ask me tomorrow and it'll be a different list, but THE SHINING and GHOST STORY will still top it.

4. Recommend one of your own books as a first choice for new readers.

Of all my novels, my favorite is SEX AND VIOLENCE IN HOLLYWOOD. But unlike most of my work, it's not horror, although it has elements of horror in it. It's a darkly comic thriller. I think it's my best work and that's the one I always recommend people read first.

Bio: Ray Garton is the author of 60 books including the novels LIVE GIRLS, SEX AND VIOLENCE IN HOLLYWOOD, and the upcoming thriller MEDS, and seven collections of short stories including the upcoming THE DISAPPEARED AND OTHER STORIES and WAILING AND GNASHING OF TEETH. In 2006, he received the Grand Master of Horror Award, which he still suspects might have been a prank. He lives in northern California with his wife Dawn.

http://www.preposteroustwaddlecock.blogspot.com/

EX-HEROES by Peter Clines

2010-11-02T18:24:00.000-05:00

There are tons of bad, outright awful, zombie books on the shelves, with more arriving every week it seems. But, there are some that rise to the level of brilliance. EX-HEROES falls into the latter category.

Despite the best efforts of a variety of superheroes, zombies have taken over. The zombies are called exes, as in ex-humans. A small group of survivors has taken refuge in a movie studio in Hollywood. With names like Gorgon, Stealth, The Mighty Dragon, and Zzzap, the heroes use their powers and abilities to help protect and aid their human charges. Played completely straight, the characters are very human in their personalities. They make mistakes, they aren’t perfect, and they come across as real people. For fellow comic fans, imagine WATCHMEN with zombies.

As this group struggles to make a life, to not only survive but thrive, they discover they aren’t the only survivors. Unfortunately, these other people aren’t looking to play nice. And they have their own protectors.

Interspersed throughout the main story are flashback chapters, each focusing on one of the heroes and their experiences leading up to the zombie crisis. They give a little background on the origin of each hero and serve to help the reader understand their varying points of view.

The book isn’t without flaws. There are a few plot holes that should have been better explained. Thankfully, these are few and far between. All in all, this was a very enjoyable read. Highly recommended to zombie fans as well as former/current comic geeks like myself.

--JIM COBB

PH4Q: Simon Strantzas

2010-11-01T17:53:00.000-05:00

1. Why horror fiction?

Many of my contemporaries find horror’s appeal lies in the way it depicts society's issues through the prism of metaphor. Others relish the release of their dark id upon the page, living out fantasy lives or punishing those who disobey societal norms. Then there are those who enjoy inflicting a roller coaster of shocks and jolts upon similar-minded thrill seekers. For me, the true beauty of the horror genre is not the fear it instills but rather the imagery it generates. There is beauty in darkness, in death, and these things appeal to me. Nowhere else but horror are such things celebrated with such vehemence, and I write so I might explore the twisted avenues and reveal the sights to all.

2. Your top five horror authors?

Robert Aickman for the sense of surreality he creates, where things aren’t quite right and yet they somehow seem as though they are; Thomas Ligotti for the growing mistrust of the world and its authority, for his fascination with simulacra; Lovecraft for the awesomeness of his vision; Fritz Leiber for his use of metaphor to examine the modern world; and Ramsey Campbell for his use of language, conveying the bleeding together of reality and sanity.

But this of course ignores those working in the genre now, those who will in time be just as remembered. I speak of authors such as Matt Cardin, Richard Gavin, Mark Samuels, Laird Barron, and a slew of others. The wave of weird fiction moving forth over the world now is but a taste of the tsunami to come.

3. Your top five horror books?

It would be impossible to limit myself to merely five favourites. Instead, let me tell you about five of the books that have influenced my work to varying degrees. There’s Thomas Ligotti’s GRIMSCRIBE, Robert Aickman’s COLD HAND IN MINE, Shirley Jackson’s THE LOTTERY, Douglas E Winter’s PRIME EVIL anthology, and Ramsey Campbell’s ALONE WITH THE HORRORS retrospective. Each in their way infiltrated my psyche, permanently changing its landscape. I cannot see the world as I once did due to these volumes. For better or for worse, the world makes sense now, but only in a strange, dark way. These books together are points on the map of madness, and I have followed the route, I fear sometimes, too exactly.

4. Recommend one of your own books as a first choice for new readers.

I imagine new readers would be best served by reading COLD TO THE TOUCH, a collection of tales more traditionally psychological. They also comprise that work which has gained the widest appreciation from fans and critics of the genre. That said, for those readers with a bit more ontological tastes, I can’t help but direct them to my debut, BENEATH THE SURFACE, which is less a collection and more a treatise on urban nightmare.

Bio: Simon Strantzas is the author of the critically acclaimed COLD TO THE TOUCH (Tartarus Press, 2009), and the recently reprinted BENEATH THE SURFACE (Dark Regions Press, 2010). His fiction has appeared in The Mammoth Book Of Best New Horror, Cemetery Dance, Postscripts, and has been nominated for the British Fantasy Award. He lives in Toronto, Canada, with his wife and has dreams of an unyielding darkness without end.

Please visit him at www.strantzas.com.

AFRAID by Jack Kilborn

2010-10-31T12:31:00.002-05:00

Safe Haven, Wisconsin, was not named ironically. It only seems that way since Bernie, Taylor, Santiago, Logan, and Ajax came to town. They want some information ("Where is Warren?"), and they're eager to torture, mutilate, and murder to get it.

They were trained for this work by the military. Thing is, they like their work a little too much. They'll never kill outright when there's still some pain left to deal. Their leader says they're "Hannibal Lecters with Rambo training."

AFRAID was the first pure horror novel from author J.A. Konrath (writing under the pseudonym Jack Kilborn so that unsuspecting readers of his "Jack" Daniels series of mysteries would not be inadvertently traumatized. It is a remarkably imaginative collection of disturbing ideas and disturbed villains, beginning with a helicopter explosion and filled with horrific high points like the townwide lottery, Sheriff Ace Streng's bear-trap ordeal, the secret film, and the very concept of Red-ops.

The author shows no remorse with his characters, throwing them up against one thing after another like contestants on some psychotic game show. At the same time, Kilborn knows that good scares need humor to lighten the mood a little bit -- and then make it even scarier. Very visual in style, reading it is like watching a horror movie in your head -- just one that's actually frightening.

--CRAIG CLARKE

PH4Q: Shaun Jeffrey

2010-10-30T13:04:00.001-05:00

1. Why horror fiction?

Having grown up in a house in a cemetery, it was a good bet I wasn’t going to be writing romance. But I’ve always read horror as there’s something that appeals on a base level. It is after all one of the oldest emotions. It addresses our fears and in some small way it might even allow us to deal with fear in real life.

2. Your top five horror authors?

Always a tough call. But I’d have to go with Stephen King, Richard Laymon, Graham Masterton, Shirley Jackson and Clive Barker. Even though their styles are vastly different, each is or was a master storyteller that can scare and captivate at the same time.

3. Your top five horror books?

These follow my top five horror authors, because they wouldn’t be my favourite authors if they hadn’t written my favourite novels, and each one appeals to me for different reasons, from a sprawling post-apocalyptic world to the denizens of hell released from a puzzle box. So they are: TENGU by Graham Masterton, THE STAKE by Richard Laymon, THE STAND by Stephen King, THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE by Shirley Jackson and THE HELLBOUND HEART by Clive Barker.

4. Recommend one of your own books as a first choice for new readers.

As it’s been my most successful, and as it’s being made into a film by Gharial Productions, I would have to recommend THE KULT:

People are predictable. That's what makes them easy to kill.

Acting out of misguided loyalty to his friends, police officer Prosper Snow is goaded into helping them perform a copycat killing, but when the real killer comes after him, it’s not only his life on the line, but his family's too. Now if he goes to his colleagues for help, he risks being arrested for murder. If he doesn't, he risks being killed.

Bio: Shaun Jeffrey has had three novels published, EVILUTION, THE KULT and DEADFALL, and one collection of short stories, VOYEURS OF DEATH. Among his other writing credits are short stories published in Surreal Magazine, Dark Discoveries, Shadowed Realms and Cemetery Dance.

His next novel, FANGTOOTH is due to be published next year. And not long after, he is hoping for world domination, but will settle for a nice cup of tea.

Website: www.shaunjeffrey.com

BERSERKER by William Meikle

2010-10-29T18:09:00.000-05:00

William Meikle writes pulp monster novels. BERSERKER is one such novel. And it is refreshingly novel when compared to most creature features.

Vikings arrive on a ship to a strange island. Tor, the main character, is the leader Per’s right hand man. Other characters include Per’s craven son Kai, and a strange character aptly named Skald. Through an act of pure vanity by Kai, Tor and his comrades find themselves pitched in a hopeless battle. This battle is fought against intelligent yet cruel beasts named the Alma. The Vikings merely hope to survive and leave the island. The Alma is known outside of this novel as a mythical ape man from Asian and Russian legend. With that one exception, Beserker is steeped in Norse mythology. Skald is the Icelandic name for poet, and imagined as someone deeply connected with fate (or wyrd) and transcends consciousness past Midgard (the human realm). In Skald’s trances he can go into a berserker rage if provoked, hence the title, but his pivotal role is in being the bridge between the world of men and the supernatural realm. This realm is occupied by the Alma and the Jotun, a race said to exist in a place separate from Midgard by high mountains.

Throughout the story Meikle maintains a delicate balance between character development, plot and brutal action. The result is that BERSERKER is an intelligent, fast-paced pulp fantasy novel! William Meikle writes to turns conventions on their heads.

Strongly recommended.

--DAVID WHITBECK

"Spore" by Ian Woodhead

2010-10-28T17:19:00.003-05:00

A right bloody mess of a story this is. A nasty fungal disease is snuffing out the over forty crowd, but for young Alistair this isn't such a bad thing. He's got a real piece of work for a Mum and her diseased suffering brings the lad more than just a spot of pleasure. He torments her, relishing in her deformity and pain, but unlike the others of her generation, she's not going quickly or quietly. She's something different.

I suppose one might label this story as fitting into the bizzaro genre. It's short and to the point, but not very deep, which is a shame. The author handles the subject well enough. There's a bit of tension building, and as a free read it's fine, but it could use a bit of refinement. I'd have liked to have seen Mr. Woodhead take the story further, with some sort of moral, political, or social implication. In the end, it's a revenge tale and childish fantasy with a poor attempt at being a bit of a gross-out. Woodhead shows some promise, but using "Spore" as the measuring stick, I'd say he's not quite there yet.

At a tad over 2000 words, "Spore's" success lies in allowing you a brief glimpse inside the head of Alistair Carstairs. "Spore's" failure is the lack of depth and being unable to lure the reader into truly connecting with either of the two characters involved in the narrative. I can't say as I'd recommend the story, but I'm not really compelled to warn you off of it either.

--BOB FREEMAN

Read "Spore"

THE DISAPPEARANCE by Bentley Little

2010-10-27T16:32:00.001-05:00

Gary and his new girlfriend Joan, along with their friends Reyn, Stacy and Brian are UCLA students on a road trip, traveling from LA to the Burning Man Festival in the Nevada desert. Once they arrive in the near post-apocalyptic atmosphere of the festival, they have a great time: the Clash plays out of loudspeakers near their tent and everyone is partying. Then they wake up the next morning and realize they’ve been drugged and that Joan is missing.

The police won’t believe Gary and his friends at first because all evidence of Joan’s existence has been wiped out. Gary doesn’t know Joan that well but he knows he loves her. He has to find Joan; he is consumed and ready to go to extraordinary measures to get her back.

Moving between LA, New Mexico and Nevada with Gary and his friends, the story takes many twists and turns including several more kidnappings, disappearances and deaths. Then there are the people in Amish-like clothing who show up at UCLA yelling, “Outsiders!”

Is Joan an Outsider? Who are the Outsiders?

In a story about love and perseverance, Bentley Little keeps you turning pages until the stunning conclusion. He has written a wonderful thriller with that “Little” touch that no one else has. Highly recommended.

--ROZ KRONFELD

Issue #4 of Dead Lines Now Available

2010-10-26T18:48:00.000-05:00

Featuring stories by Graham Masterton, J.F. Gonzalez, John Everson, Randy Chandler, Matthew Fryer and more.

CLICK HERE to read Dead Lines.

News: NIGHTJACK by Tom Piccirilli

2010-10-25T18:23:00.000-05:00

CLICK THIS LINK: an original to digital novel - first publication in any format

Going Monstering by Edward Lee

2010-10-24T13:36:00.001-05:00

Nineteen year old Ann White is an overweight dullard with average looks and pitiful grades. She used to lack motivation, but that was before her super-rich father told her she’d be disinherited unless she made it into the sorority of Alpha House. Now she’s determined to do whatever it takes to become inducted, which is just as well, because the House motto is ‘suck and swallow,’ and the senior sorority sister Miss Kezzy has a series of tests lined up for Ann and her roommates during Pledge Week, each one more depraved and humiliating than the last.

GOING MONSTERING is a Lovecraftian horror story, Lee style. An ultra-black comedy that breaks just about every taboo imaginable. Who else but Ed Lee could make you choke with laughter at the most outrageous scenes of bestiality, sodomy and fellatio on an almost apocalyptic scale? The story’s theme of spiritual debasement through sexual degradation is one he's often explored before, yet the sheer perversity of his imagination keeps things exhilaratingly fresh. Or is that rotten? I can’t tell anymore. Ed Lee has a way of messing with your mind.

Do Ann and her roommates have the resolve to survive Miss Kezzy’s sickening tests? Why is the maid a well hung redneck? What is the secret of Alpha House? And just how much semen can a girl’s stomach hold? You’ll have to go monstering to find out. Insanely vile and downright hilarious, GOING MONSTERING is a mini masterpiece of demented depravity and an absolute must have for die hard fans of Edward Lee.

--JAMES CARROLL

Dean Koontz December 2010 Release

2010-10-23T16:23:00.000-05:00

What the Night Knows. Click for details.

DEADCORE: 4 Hardcore Zombie Novellas Book Trailer

2010-10-22T18:18:00.000-05:00