Pitfalls

I originally posted the bulk of this blog as a response to another, but it's a subject that I feel worthy of rehashing—particularly given the number of enterprises out there whose aim is to divorce a struggling writer from his/her hard-earned dollaros.

There's always lot of heated posturing on the subject of self-publishing, but in certain circles, it's come to something of a head in the last few days. I see no point in bringing locales and personalities into it; most of the problem with such heated debate anyway is that anything meaningful on either side gets lost in the clashing of egos and the trading of witticisms. That's all well and good, but it rarely accomplishes much. (Not to say it can't be fun from time to time.)

For the serious, non-hobbyist writer, getting read (a.k.a. getting published) is no simple task. The hurdles are considerable, and if you're here reading this, there's a good chance you know many of them firsthand. You have to submit. You have to wait. You have to accept criticism that sometimes isn't kind (and sometimes worse). You have to wait some more. Once your work's been accepted, you have to make sure you've got a good contract. You usually have to wait to get paid. Sometimes things happen in the business world—small press, big press, it makes no never mind—that cause the venue you were about to bust into to go bust overnight.

In the early years of the 21st century, alternatives to traditional publishing are blossoming and beckoning, and oh, so tempting because they cut out much of that painful, rigorous editorial process.

Beware.

Even the best authors out there benefit from working with good, professional editors (emphasis on professional). The absence of one is just one of many nasty pitfalls in self-publishing. While there is certainly the occasional jewel among self-published works, the vast, vast majority of them would never make it out of any half-decent editor’s slushpile. Having edited a major small press magazine (Deathrealm) for a decade as well as several professional anthologies, I can tell you right now that most folks who like to call themselves “writers” are simply not fit to do so. I find it rather hellish to even imagine retail bookshelves filled with such unfiltered dreck—and with price tags on the covers! Recently, just for my own edification, I’ve read a few of examples of self-published works, and I have to tell you...it’s a mess. People, editorial processes exist for a reason, and if you’ve indeed been through it, I trust you can appreciate why any writer worth his salt would want a good editor. Lord knows I do, and in my time, I’ve been fortunate enough to work with many, many good ones (and unfortunate enough to work with a handful of bad ones).

Thus, it’s easy to see why self-published books carry such a negative stigma. Also easy to see why bookstores seldom carry them, reputable reviewers rarely review them, and book buyers usually barely glance at them. Little is more laughable than to see the term “best-selling” applied to some self-published book. Best-selling compared to what? Everyone loves to point to John Grisham, Mark Twain, and all kinds of well-known names as successful self-publishers. Guess what: major minority we're talking here. Too often from a different time period altogether. For every shining success story, one can only guess at how many thousands of utter flops exist—the only winners being the Lulus and iUniverses who rake in the dollars from all the hopefuls. To be a successful writer, you've got to be a successful businessperson. Multiply that many times over if you're running the business of publishing yourself. Are you going to actually be able to write your next book while you're playing entrepreneur in a field stacked against you?

Another trap that I personally find rather galling: lately, I’m seeing “reviewers” who expect writers to pay them to review their books. God in heaven, what next? How can a review for which money has changed hands possibly be objective? If you, as a writer, pay a reviewer (who sells you on the premise because it will help you "sell, sell, sell") and then get trashed, what has the experience done for you that couldn't have been done better by simply workshopping the manuscript—or getting feedback from a legitimate editor? Yes, you may pay a publicist to get yourself more exposure, but that’s not buying a “review.” A glowing review for which you've paid means pure diddly to anyone. A review in Publisher's Weekly means something. A review in Library Journal isn't shabby, particularly if they give you a nice one. In the speculative genre, reviews in Science Fiction Chronicle, Tangent, Cemetery Dance, and others are nice enough, and if you really think that review blurbs are going to help you out, then at least with these you've got something reasonably credible on your side. And they don't cost you more than a copy of your book (in fact, in general, they cost the publisher an advance copy; another benefit of having a real one).

Note: please avoid confusing self-publishing with Print on Demand (POD). If you don't know the difference already, you shouldn't be reading this. Go research. Is very easy.

I’m an active member of HWA. I don't see it as an “old-boy’s club”; it’s a group that promotes professional pay for professional writers. Period. It’s hardly a perfect organization, but its “exclusivity,” if one wants to call it that, is there because it’s intended to promote professionalism—in terms of dollars and cents. It’s not for the casual hobbyist writer. As writers who work, we are looking to get paid to write by publishers who have the resources to acquire, edit, publish, and market quality fiction.

Just to clear up a misconception that came to my attention: an advance, at least from any reputable publisher, is not a loan. It’s just what it says it is. If your title doesn’t earn out, you may have difficulty getting as large an advance in the future, and if you regularly fail to earn out, then the publisher may not be so eager to continue carrying you. But you don’t give that advance money back to them. I would never deal with a publisher who expected the writer to return a portion of it. After all, while authors can be expected to publicize and push and help sales along, it’s the publisher’s job to sell the title. Failing to earn out isn’t solely the author’s fault.

As for me and why you might even care to listen to my opinion...well, no, I'm no best-seller; I'm no celebrity; and I'm not particularly rich from writing. But I've got a lot of years of working with editors, publishers, and other writers, in the big presses and the small presses. I make money writing, sometimes enough to make a real difference in my standard of living. No fame, but I have at least a modicum of recognition in the field, and at least to some, a certain amount of credibility that comes from lots of time dealing with professionals in the business.

Writing itself is a tough endeavor; marketing yourself is perhaps even tougher. Yes, the publishing landscape is changing, and innovative approaches, from the top down, are both necessary and part of the business. One thing that doesn’t change, though, is that the editorial process exists for a reason. A very solid reason. Writers who defy it do so at their own risk, and that risk is pretty grave, if you ever expect to have a real career.

Here's a link or two to articles and blogs on the subject that I feel are noteworthy and even balanced. Perhaps when I've got a tad more time to dig, I'll add a few more.

Random Humbugs to Round Off the Year (Storytellers Unplugged)

Self-Publishing: Perils, Pitfalls, and Possibilities

True Stories About Publish America

SFWA POD FAQ

Okay, it's time for my dinner. I go away now.

HPLHS's The Whisperer in Darkness

Most folks who have read a word I've ever written, fiction or otherwise, know that I'm a die-hard fan of H. P. Lovecraft's work. A couple of years back, the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society released on DVD their silent version of Call of Cthulhu, which may be, to date, the best screen adaptation of Lovecraft. This has been floating around for a while, but I thought it worth mentioning that the same gang is putting together a talkie version of The Whisperer in the Darkness, which is easily one of Lovecraft's eeriest tales. The trailer—just a teaser, actually—makes it appear that the HPLHS guys have nailed it again. I'm not sure what the release date for Whisperer is, since, unfortunately, the Web site indicates nothing of the kind, but at least for the time being, this is my most-anticipated DVD release.

Hurry the hell up, guys.

The New Frontier

My contributor copies of Frontier Cthulhu arrived in the mail today, so I smiled for a while. It's the new Chaosium anthology edited by William Jones, featuring my collaboration with Durant Haire, "The Terror From Middle Island" (which originally appeared in Dark Wisdom magazine). Chaosium still puts out a nice-looking product, and they sent me a check, which helps temper some long-standing ill feeling going back to Song of Cthulhu,which I edited in 1997 and came out in 2001. This actually looks like a really nice volume, so when I get done with Mr. Jones's previous effort (Horrors Beyond II), I think I'll dive into this one.

I've spent the last couple of days giving my Web site a considerable facelift, going for improved readability and such. If you get a chance to check it out, I'd love to get any comments, particularly if you see areas that need improvement.

'Tis here: The Realm of Stephen Mark Rainey.

Burglars Bite

Our next-door neighbors were gone this past week, so Thursday about midnight, I go over to let out their dog. While Lucky goes winkle, I notice over at Turk's, the adjacent neighbor's, a bicycle lying on the driveway behind his pickup truck. Then I see a flashlight moving around inside the truck, the light revealing a figure wearing a stocking cap. I calmly collect the dog, deposit him inside, and return to my house to call 911. This done, I retrieve ye trusty ol' attitude adjuster (pictured), and wander back toward Turk's. Of course, at this point, the hamburglar has vanished. I alert Turk to the evident break-in, and he finds that his truck has been ransacked. Fortunately, there was little of value in it to begin with, and all that appears missing is a handful of change.

With commendable response time (about three minutes), the police arrive on the scene, take my witness report, and go about the neighborhood searching for a burglar on a bicycle. As the officer said, no doubt some brainless crackhead trying to scrape up enough cash to get another fix.

When I head back home, the missus has the camera out, snapping away, and takes a shot of the frustrated hunter.

Oh, I do dislike burglars. I dislike them intensely. Of course, I can only use the attitude adjuster if I feel threatened, but then I'm sensitive that way.

Mo Horrors, Mo*Con

My contributor copies of Elder Signs Press's Horrors Beyond 2 anthology arrived today; another fabulous job by William Jones and ESP. Very attractive hardcover and trade paperback. "Stories of Strange Creations," the book is subtitled. The stories are about unusual devices, and one can be pretty well certain that they're mostly unpleasant. The devices, I mean.

HB2 contains my story, "The Ghost Lens." Also features William C. Dietz, A. A. Attanasio, John Shirley, Richard A. Lupoff, Robert Weinberg, Paul S. Kemp, Jay Caselberg, Gene O'Neill, Alexis Glynn Latner, E. Sedia, David Niall Wilson, Lucien Soulban, Paul Melniczek, Tim Curran, C.J. Henderson, Greg Beatty, Michail Velichansky, Ron Shiflet, John Sunseri, and William Jones.

Writer, Sinister Minister, and horrific host Maurice Broaddus has officially announced Mo*Con III, which I will be attending as a guest this summer. Other guests of honor include Nick Mamatas, Matt Cardin, Lucy Snyder, Tina Jens, Chesya Burke, Kim Paffenroth, and Bob Freeman.

Mo*Con III will be held June 13–15, at The Dwelling Place, 7440 North Michigan Road, Indianapolis, IN 46268.

Late addendum: My contributor copies of Doorways magazine #4, which features my story "A Tale of the Terrible Dead," arrived today as well. Looks like a good time to turn out all the lights and read some ramblings by the Rainey.

Well...leave at least one reading lamp on, anyway.

OTHER GODS Cover Is in the House

Artist Wayne Miller sent the cover art for Other Gods this evening. Pretty dang sharp.

I rather like. I've also set up a new info page on my Web site: Other Gods

In the sad news department, Maila Nurmi, best-known as horror hostess Vampira, star of Ed Wood's Plan 9 From Outer Space, has passed away at the age of 86. It took Tim Burton's Ed Wood for me to gain any appreciation whatsoever of Plan 9, but I always did have kind of a soft spot for Ms. Nurmi. May she rest in peace.

Hidden Voices

If you're hanging out in this neighborhood, it's a near-certainty that you're into creepiness. Because, yes, thanks for asking, I certainly am.

Many years ago, my good friend and fellow scrivener of scariness, William R. "Mr. Bill" Trotter, gave me a tape of some dark music he thought I might enjoy. Among the many excellent selections were Ingram Marshall's Hidden Voices, which may be the eeriest piece of music I've ever heard. Much like Ennio Morricone's Carpenter-esque soundtrack to The Thing, Hidden Voices, when played in an otherwise silent, dark room, is almost enough to make me turn on all the lights in the house and put on some lighthearted death metal.

It's a disconcerting, minimalist composition, featuring mostly human voices, distorted and warped, that conjure up a nightmarish yet strangely beautiful atmosphere. To my mind, it's the perfect soundtrack for Lovecraft's "Dreams in the Witch House."

Back in the mid-90s, I played this piece for my at-the-time co-editor of Deathrealm, Dani d'Attilio—who was also a budding writer of no little talent. As a writing exercise, we both wrote stories based on the impressions that the music left us with. Her story was so different from mine that one would never guess the source of inspiration was the same for both; yet, an astute reader might be able to discern emotional peaks and valleys common to both, which corresponded to the musical flow. I liked her story, which she actually titled "Hidden Voices," well enough to run it in Deathrealm #27 (Spring 1996—the issue that was banned in Canada because of Ian McDowell's wonderful cover art). My tale was "Silhouette," which appeared in Cemetery Dance #24 (Summer 1996), and was subsequently reprinted in The Best of Cemetery Dance. (It will also be appearing in my upcoming collection, Other Gods, from Dark Regions Press, this spring.) To this day, I think "Silhouette" may be the creepiest story I've ever written, due entirely to the powerful inspiration of Marshall's music.

Hidden Voices is difficult to find on CD anymore; it's on an album titled Three Penitential Visions/Hidden Voices, which includes three other tracks. For Christmas, I received a nice iTunes gift certificate, and I was thrilled to find that the entire album is available on iTunes for $9.99 (in fact, you have to purchase the entire thing; you can't get just the individual tracks). It's well worth it; Hidden Voices is by far the strongest and most distinctive composition on the album, but the others are none too shabby. If you've got a hankering to listen to something that will likely raise the hairs on the back of your neck, Hidden Voices is the ticket.

The Inevitable Recap

These days, if there's any significance whatsoever to the calendar flipping over to a new year, it's nothing I particularly care for. I never make resolutions, I don't expect things locally or globally to suddenly get all better now just because it's not last year anymore, and I have to start compiling crap for doing my taxes. My next birthday, assuming I get to it, adds another number to my age; okay, sure, I'm thrilled to have gotten this far, but I'm certainly older in body than in mind. Aging really ought to stop somewhere between 33 and 41, and then you're good from here on out. Ha ha.

Make no mistake, I have much to be thankful for, and I truly am. In 2008, I have a new book to look forward to (Other Gods, due in the spring from Dark Regions), and a couple of other deals that, if they work out, should be sweet indeed. I'm writing fiction as prolifically as I ever have, and I'm selling it regularly and profitably. My family has always been close, and those of us who are left have only grown closer in the past year. And New Year's Eve is usually pretty nice because we spend it with good friends. Tonight, we're going to party with our friends the Andersons and the Vinsons. Better folk there aren't.

2007 has had more than its share of rockiness, particularly in its opening months. Peg had surgery right after Christmas '06 and had to function at far less than full capacity for many moons thereafter. In February, my mom was diagnosed with uterine cancer; thankfully, the resulting surgery seems to have taken care of it all. In March, my daughter suffered a blood clot in her lung and had to be hospitalized. Our little cat Charcoal, whom I loved dearly, died of a tumor in April. An unprecedented number of old friends of the family have suffered extreme health problems; a few have passed away. Just a few weeks ago, my good friend Bruce "Boo" Smith died. As we get older, death becomes a more prominent figure in our lives. It takes some doing to deal with him.

But the latter months of 2007 have been largely among the most personally satisfying times I've known for many years. I've been able to spend a good amount of time at the old homestead in Virginia, getting in long, meditative walks; exploring places I've never been; and spending quality time with my mom. Old friendships have been renewed and/or re-invigorated. Peg and I have had some great times of sharing. I got to see my daughter at Thanksgiving; missed her at Christmas, but our time together has reinforced how special she is to me—more than I ever realized when she was just a wee young 'un.

I think, in the overall scheme of things, 2007 made me a better, stronger person. Didn't much like the way life has of going about such things, but nobody ever said it would be a picnic. Still, I might just be happy to settle for a tad less personal growth in 2008.

If you've spent any time here at my blog or, even better, reading my fiction, you have my gratitude, and my hopes for a good year to come. Bless you.

I Think It's Gonna Be a Long, Long Time

Mercy, I haven't seen this one in a long time. I remember when it first aired, and I asked my roommate to please drive nails into my head with a baseball bat.
On a happier note: Of my story, "The Ghost Lens," which appears in Elder Signs Press's new Horrors Beyond II, anthology, writer Matt Carpenter had this to say:
"I have liked just about every short story of (Rainey's) that I've read. 'Ghost Lens' was another winner, describing a weird discovery that allows its user to see into the very fibers of a person's existence, making a mockery of modern medical imaging, and also allows the healing of all ills. But as you look through the lens, something looks at you, sizing you up...One thing I like about Rainey's stories is that the characters are so well drawn, coming to life on the page."
I'll take it.

I Loves Me Some Christmas

Always have. In fact, the time of year between Halloween and the new year is always my favorite. Well, Halloween being Halloween, it just rates anyway. But Thanksgiving and Christmas are the two times of year that my family comes together and renews its closeness.

This year, things were a little odd for Christmas. My daughter couldn't make it home because of her work schedule. Then my wife came down with a nasty respiratory bug (which she did not catch from me, despite her claims to the contrary) and wasn't able to come to the old homestead in Virginia and celebrate with my mom, my brother, and me. So I came back home early yesterday to spend time with the sickie—who, thankfully, is feeling much better today (which is good, since she has to work).

Still, the quality time with Mom and me bro was truly fine. In the last few years, the channels of communication between us, which at one time were sometimes strained, have opened considerably, and their presence in my life is a true blessing. And last night, just being here alone with Peg was wonderfully revitalizing.

Gift-wise, we had a pretty good haul this year. For all my love of books, I find that movies still are my true excitement in the entertainment field, and some real gems arrived this holiday: the deluxe box set of Twin Peaks; the box set of They Call Me Trinity/Trinity Is Still My Name (a couple of my all-time favorite comedies); the box set of the Planet of the Apes movies; Count Dracula (the BBC production with Louis Jourdan, which is my favorite screen adaptation); Battlestar Galactica: Razor, and Latitude Zero, one of Toho's damn cool SF flicks from 1970—and the DVD includes both the U.S. and Japanese versions, along with a bunch of cool extras.

And I got Peg the box set of American Gothic, which she really loved during its initial run on TV in the early 90s (as did I; in fact, for my Dark Shadows novel, Dreams of the Dark, I pretty much patterned the character of Thomas Rathburn after Gary Cole as Sheriff Buck in AG).

So, despite the absence of the young 'un and Peg's illness, we had a dang good Christmas overall. I really hope next year that we'll all be healthy and able to get together. I still love this holiday, just as I did as a kid; and these days, what with life being so tenuous and unpredictable, spending quality time with the family—whichever among us are able to gather—is all the more special.

I hope there were wonderful times for everyone. And that some of the special goodness of Christmas carries through for the rest of the year. Blessings to you.

Musical Monkey Shines!

I received a treasure today.

The first record album I remember listening to as a wee young 'un was Walt Disney's Musical Monkey Shines. A collection of "western, circus, and nonsense songs for children," it features selections ranging from the wistful (the ballad of "Toby Tyler") to the utterly wacky ("That Crazy Place in Outer Space," sung by Annette Funicello). Fess Parker, of Davey Crockett and Daniel Boone fame, croons a few winners, too: "Pecos Bill," "A Cowboy Needs a Horse," and "Good Night, Little Wrangler."

I don't know if there's even a handful of folks to whom these old songs would have any meaning—though I suppose there must be a few, since the rare copy of the LP on Ebay generally goes for an extortionate price. But I have vivid recollections of my dad rocking me in his arms in the evening while this record was playing. In fact, those may well be my earliest memories (apart from the most bone-chilling night-horror of my youth, which I think I've related somewhere in a past blog; no doubt, I'll relate it again one of these days). My brother also has fond memories of the album, as we've both been actively seeking a copy for years and years.

I have no idea what happened to the old record that we owned all those years ago; I suppose it got tossed out with lord-knows-what other old relics. I had pretty much resigned myself to never hearing those old songs again, since the album seems such a rarity. But then, a couple of weeks ago, a copy turned up on Ebay, in a lot of 20-some Disney records from the early 60s. What a trove! I put in a reasonable bid, expecting to be outbid more or less immediately.

Nope. I won the thing. And today, the albums arrived. So this evening, I made myself the king of hot-pepper martinis, turned out the lights, and put that sucker on.

To some, I suppose, just bunch of maudlin claptrap. To me, it was heaven. Some of the true delight of childhood came roaring back to me. I could see my dad again as clearly as if he were alive today. So much power in that silly old music.

I think that may have been the best gift I could have asked for this Christmas season.

OTHER GODS Scheduled for Spring 2008 Release

Received the contract and check from Dark Regions Press today for Other Gods, and it's been added to Dark Regions' Web site, so I reckon it's about as official as official gets. It's scheduled for a Spring 2008 release. Sixteen tales to send you off in a fright by yours truly. Cover art by Wayne Miller, intro by Elizabeth Massie. Go for it.

The bug seems to be on its way out, so I think I'm all set to make merry for the holidays. Hope you are too.

Just What One Needs Going Into the Holidays....

A blasted cold bug.

Got the icky congestion, low-grade fever, achy joints, light sensitivity, the works. Came home early from work, loaded myself up with meds, got in bed, and stared at the ceiling.

Tried to hash out some details for the current story-in-the-works, but even that was futile. Some of the patterns in the ceiling are kind of interesting, though.

I Love This Book

Got a royalty check today for my story ("Bloodlight") in Love in Vein II, a 1997 anthology edited by Poppy Z. Brite. Not a big check by any means, but a check nonetheless. Royalties have been coming in regularly for this book since its release, some of which have been rather sizable, making "Bloodlight" the short story for which I've earned the most money. In retrospect, it's only a fair tale; not one that's particularly representative of my work as a whole. But the antho is decent, and I'm damn glad to have had a piece of the action.

Here's to Poppy and vampiric erotica—a subgenre for which, at one time, I swore I would never write (mainly because I saw so much crap of that ilk submitted to Deathrealm back in the day). I'm so glad I changed my mind.

But...I swear...I will not write a zombie tale. Ever. Really.

Oh, crap. I just got an invitation to write a zombie tale.

What Dreams May Come and All That

Not blogging so much lately, with all my energy going into a new tale, which I very much fear may end up novella length. Tough sell, a novella, but this one's dictating that it go where it will. Had a long, vivid, violent dream the other night—one of those very rare ones with an honest-to-god storyline, some gratuitous sex and violence, and very little of the funky nonsense that usually creeps into dreams and renders them unwritable, at least without major overhauling. None of that here. I woke up at four AM the other morning and started scribbling everything I could remember. Took me a good thirty to forty minutes, and I'm not sure I've gotten my beauty sleep back since then.

It'll be called Abroyel, after the demonic doo-thingy who was out to spill my blood. He very nearly succeeded—in fact, if I hadn't woke up when I did, I might not be here now to write about it.

Crab Attack!

Turner Classic Movies ran Attack of the Crab Monsters last night, or rather, early this morning, at 2:00 AM. This is one of those legendary Roger Corman Z-movie classics that thrilled so many of us as children in the 50s and 60s—except that I never managed to see it as a young 'un. All these years, I've felt deprived, particularly since the stills that Famous Monsters of Filmland used to run convinced me that I hadn't lived until I had seen this movie. Well, now at age 48, I've seen it—sort of—so I guess I can go to my final rest satisfied.

I say "sort of" because I dozed through bits and pieces of it, what with the late hour and all, but I caught enough of it to know that I really love this movie. It's a hootin', hollerin' super-fun monster flick, featuring semi-human-faced giant crabs that absorb the consciousness of their victims and speak in their voices to lure others to the dinner table. What's more, it features Russ Johnson, "Professor" of Gilligan's Island fame, playing a professor. There's a great opening title sequence; creepy crab sound effects; spooky, disembodied voices; and strangely mesmerizing monsters, so what's not to love?

I Lost a Friend Today.

Many of you who read this know Bruce Smith, a.k.a. Boo, who has been a prominent figure on a few horror message boards for the last several years. He passed away today, and I have a hole in my heart that is somehow unexpected.

I knew he was ill and that in all probability, he wouldn't be around much longer. Yet, somehow, I convinced myself that he would rally; that because he was suffering so badly, he probably felt things were more dire than they really were. Rationally, I knew better, but my heart was not prepared to accept reality.
About three years ago, Boo posted a note on the Shocklines message board about Dark Shadows: Dreams of the Dark, the novel I co-wrote with Beth Massie, saying how much he really loved it — not knowing that either Beth or I frequented the forum. Well, it wasn't long before he was picking up everything I'd ever written and sending me long missives about how much he enjoyed them. The thing about Boo is that there was never one ounce of false flattery in his words. He was my "number one fan" and made no bones about it. I became a frequent subject in his gallery of PhotoShop funnies. I sometimes felt a little embarrassed, but I never for a moment doubted Boo's good humor or his genuine affection.

For the past three years, Boo has been a part of my life. Literally, every day, he would send me a funny picture he had made or found, or drop me a note wondering how I was doing, or tell me something about his own creative aspirations. Every Monday, he'd send me a photo of a bunny and tell me, "Here's your Monday bunny." One Wednesday, he sent me a picture of a bunny piled up on top of another, with the caption, "Sometimes two Monday bunnies collide, and you have hump day."

Boo loved the Partridge Family. Know what? When I was a young 'un, I loved the Partridge Family too. So he sent me some CDs of their songs. Then, a few months back, he told me all his Partridge Family mp3s had up and vanished. So I made him a CD of all the Partridge Family music I have (which is considerable, I'll have you know), and he wrote me back to let me know that he was in seventh heaven.

Boo's little cat, Scotty, died of leukemia a year or so ago. Boo loved that kitty something fierce, and I felt his pain deeply when Scotty crossed the Rainbow Bridge. Boo always wanted to hear about the antics of my own critters—Chester, Dusty, and Frasier. When our dear little Charcoal passed away last year, Boo sent me deep words of comfort because he knew exactly how much grief I felt.

Boo was a man of compassion and humor. In a world of cynicism and bitterness, his soul always seemed "innocent" to me. He felt things deeply, and he occasionally confided to me the hurt he felt when people spoke ill of him — usually because of a misunderstanding. Sometimes, I think he didn't quite know how to deal with people whose cynicism was alien to him. He sometimes retreated in depression, but he always bounced back, and he tried so hard to be someone that people would admire, rather than condemn because they failed to comprehend his heart.

I have always admired my friend Boo. I miss him so much. The hole in my heart is wide, and it's bleeding. But that's for me. For Boo, I have faith that he has found the peace and acceptance he always wanted. I hope, wherever he now abides, that he knows my acceptance, my respect, and my love are with him.

Farewell, my dear friend Boo.

Alexandra Sokoloff's THE HARROWING

Ever since Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House scared the living hell out of me at age 11 (even if I didn't completely understand it all at the time), I've enjoyed stories that involve supernatural nasties. I love gloomy old houses, spooky woods, creaking noises at night, and all those things that hint at the existence of unseen entities lurking at the edge of the real world. Something about ghosties and ghoulies can still hit a few vital nerves that the most awful of real-world horrors do not. It's a stimulating sense of awe rather than disgust and depression over the evil that men do.

The Harrowing, dare I say it, reminds me in no few ways of my own novel, The Lebo Coven. Cryptic messages from a Ouija board; a dark isolated setting; the Kaballah; rituals of summoning and banishment; something from the other side desiring to come here.

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, rather than go home, five students at Baird College stay in their dorm—a rather forbidding, cavernous old mansion called Mendenhall—and discover a Ouija board, which, naturally enough, they begin using to pass the time. Soon, they are in contact with the spirit of a dead student named Zachary, who seems jovial enough, and is at first content to play word games with them. Or so it appears.

The five students are all social misfits, and in fact have very little in common with each other, at least initially. However, as the messages from the spirit world become darker and more personal, their lives become entwined in the most unexpected ways.

The narrative unfolds through the eyes of Robin Stone, a lonely, "invisible" young woman whose inner strength, if she ever possessed any, seems to have eroded past any conceivable reserve—at least until she finds that her survival, and the survival of her new companions, is at stake. Each of the characters suffers from personally blinding weaknesses; however, the surprising, dire threat from realms beyond begins to coax out strengths that none knew they had.

This is Alex Sokoloff's first novel, and it's mostly an admirable undertaking. The better part of the story moves relatively slowly, focusing largely on Robin's inner struggles and her attempts to not only understand the unknown darkness but to delve behind the opaque veneers of these people with whom circumstances have forced her to interact. When the action does begin, it becomes fairly breathtaking—so much so that it sometimes lapses into an orgy of literary "special effects," a potentially fatal flaw that has been the downfall of many a supernatural tale. Lots of noise and screaming and fire and smoke, spectacle taking the place of true drama.

The result is a climax that seems a bit rushed and less painstakingly crafted than all that has come before. In fact, in the penultimate chapter, one character, a young woman named Lisa, after an especially brutal encounter with the otherworldly menace, suffers a shattered arm, which the author describes as dangling "at a sickening angle." Two pages later, in the midst of a panicked ritual, Lisa raises her arms and presses her hands together—a movement that would seem pretty much impossible under the circumstances.

Not a fatal flaw, but a distraction that pulled me away from the intimacy I had been enjoying with the book.

Despite a few such problems, The Harrowing is, overall, a decent first novel. I have to give Alexandra a great deal of credit for her storytelling, particularly in rendering a believable, atmospheric setting (in fact, I can't help but picture Seaview Terrace, a.k.a. Collinwood in the original Dark Shadows, as Mendenhall dormitory in the novel—particularly since Seaview has for many years been a dorm at Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island).

If you enjoy tense drama and ghostly goings-on in a gloomy, atmospheric old house, The Harrowing may be just for you. In hardback and paperback from St. Martins Press.

OTHER GODS from Dark Regions Press

Dark Regions Press will be producing a new collection of my short fiction, titled Other Gods, scheduled for release in late summer 2008. It will feature 16 of my tales, spanning twenty years, including the never-before-published "Antidotes." This will be released as a signed, limited-edition hardback as well as a trade paperback, featuring cover art by Wayne Miller and an introduction by Elizabeth Massie.

Contents:
• Fugue Devil
• Rapture in Black
• Sky of Thunder, Island of Blood
• Other Gods
• Antidotes
• Circus Bizarre
• The Lake of Shadows
• The Jack-o'-Lantern Memoirs
• Silhouette
• The Violet Princess
• Elegy
• Epiphany: A Flying Tiger's Story
• Signals
• The Fire Dogs of Balustrade
• The Transformer of Worlds
• The Devil's Eye

Other Gods is not yet listed on Dark Regions' Web site, but updates will be posted soon. Regular updates will be posted at my Web site and blog(s).

Teddy Bears and the Planet of the Apes

Just when you think radical Muslims must surely have sunk as low into primitive savagery as they possibly could...guess what.

I don't usually wax political here, but nothing inflames the old temper more than the idiocy of radical Muslims. I'm sure you've heard about the British schoolteacher in Sudan whose class had a teddy bear named Mohammad (ostensibly named for a child in the class, not the Lawgiver). And thus—much as when Salman Rushdie wrote The Satanic Verses, and Danish newspapers printed cartoons depicting the Lawgiver—the fine apes of the world threw a temper tantrum and demanded that she be jailed, fined, and bequeathed forty lashes. Well, today, she was convicted and sentenced to 15 days in jail (five already served), followed by expulsion from the country.

The latter is probably the best thing that could happen. I am greatly relieved that she was not sentenced to the lashes, as that might well have been fatal for her.

I have to admire someone who willingly sojourns in the planet of the apes with the hope of building bridges between us and them. It's a noble thing, but I swear to God, Charlton Heston had a better chance of ironing out his issues with Dr. Zaius than any rational human being does with Islamists. They are kindergarten bullies who, sadly, are not confined to their own little sandbox, and who use the tools of civilized society to spread their unique brand of hatred and intolerance. Ironically, they charge Ms. Gibbons, said schoolteacher, with being "another ring in the circles of plotting against Islam."

No, Ms. Gibbons was trying to do right by her young charges and in the community where she worked. The only force fueling intolerance of Islam in the world is the radical Islamist mindset. And saddest of all, while there are still dissenting and reasonable voices in the Muslim world (a good example may be found here), the smoke is thick and the fire is spreading. At this point, I don't know whether those who were calling for the most extreme punishment for Ms. Gibbons have yet incited riots, but they sure as hell wouldn't surprise me.

What else can we expect from the planet of the apes?

A late addendum: Sure enough, the protests have begun.

Something in THE MIST...

I may be the last one on the block seeing The Mist, but I got to it this evening, and—hoooey—I'm thinking that in terms of intensity it may rival Alien and Carpenter's The Thing, which have for years been my standards for monster-movie intensity.

There be spoilers here, so if that makes you unhappy, vacate the premises with all possible haste.

The novella is my favorite of all King's work, at least that I've read to date. The movie stays very true to its source, and where it does diverge, it's mainly in elaborating the characters. The creatures are quite chilling in appearance and execution; on occasion, the CGI is a wee tad less-than-perfect, but never poor enough to spoil the effectiveness of the imagery. The acting is first-rate across the board, and I was very happy to see Frances Sternhagen and Jeffrey DeMunn, who are a couple of my favorite character actors. DeMunn in particular has had a good run in several King-based films, such as Storm of the Century, The Shawshank Redemption, and The Green Mile.

Among horror fans—and non-fans, for that matter—the grim (some say cruel) ending is a point of some contention.

To me, the end felt a too-obvious exercise in irony; I saw it coming as soon as they got past the big critter of the novella's ending. Still, I didn't get the feeling that it was necessarily continuous narrative at the end—that the military was literally just a mile away. We're focused on Drayton, whose perspective by this point is probably skewed as all get-out. The moments shown in the last minutes of the film might have been minutes...or hours. Or more. Not that it particularly matters—just an idea that occurred to me as I was watching it.

I didn't hate the ending by any means, and it certainly didn't ruin the whole thing (as the ending of The Stand does for me). I didn't think it stretched credibility to think the military could have gotten as far as they did cleaning up the situation; the critters were quite mortal, after all. Still, I think I'd have been just as happy to see it end ambiguously, as the novella did. That was pretty damn grim in and of itself.

Some have said that moviegoers have ended up laughing at the ending. Where I saw it, no one was laughing. The only thing I did hear was from a group of folks going out who were shaking their heads and muttering, "He cowarded out. He just cowarded out."

Maybe. Easy to say when you're sitting in a movie theater that's not under assault by the unearthly (and you're not terribly fussy about proper English usage). Putting myself into that character, it's quite conceivable I might have done the same thing. Had I been there with my child, and I truly believed that the alternative was one of those things getting hold of her, well...I think I could. I've always believed there are worse things than death, particularly having lived through the long, lingering demise of my father. To spare someone such a horror... I think I could.

All in all, I'm very happy with director Darabont's rendering of The Mist. I'm certain I'll be hitting the theater to see it at least once more, and it'll be a keeper once it's released on DVD.

Happy Monster Turkey Day

I've always loved great big old monster turkeys on Thanksgiving. I hope you do too.

Nothing like spending time with the family at the old homestead in Virginia. It's a little gray today, but otherwise quite pleasant and probably good for a big old walk in the spooky woods this afternoon.

Making great progress on my upcoming scary project. Met with the cover artist on Monday to yak about graphic details.

Hope that whets your appetites....

Telling the World to Shut the Hell Up

That's kind of been me this week. In recent days, I've been pulled in too many directions by too many things (mostly by my own choice, too much of it online), so I spent most of this week keeping my online time to a minimum and getting lots of ducks in a row, writing-wise and home life–wise. It was a terribly busy workweek, which has left the old guy feeling a touch of the fatigue. But it's been very productive.

I've managed to get several writing projects lined up for the coming year—although I'd hoped a couple of them would be farther along by now. Alas, no, so I still can't announce them. However, at least one, which involves a new book, looks to be shaping up nicely, so that one, at least, I'll scream and holler about in the near future, gods and monsters willing.

We're in the midst of my favorite time of year—the period from Halloween till Christmas—and Thanksgiving is shaping up to be a fine time with family. Here's hoping, and hoping for good things for all of y'all too.

Yes, I do say "y'all". Don't like it? Lump it.

A Sojourn at Stately Wilson Manor

Spent a couple of very pleasant days in Hertford, NC, at Stately Wilson Manor, home of my longtime friend and fellow writer, Dave Wilson; his wife Trish Macomber; and their wild and woolly family. Yesterday, we had a booksigning in Elizabeth City at Page After Page Bookstore, though it might more rightly be described as a booksitting, since downtown Elizabeth City appeared bereft of human beings. There was supposed to be a Veterans' Day parade, but it was canceled due to inclement weather, and the frigid winds for the rest of the day made for a most uncomfortable out-of-doors experience, so we mostly entertained ourselves by watching trash blow down the all-but-empty street. Regardless, no time spent with Dave is wasted time, and we did enjoy a nice lunch from a deli down the street.

Last night, we watched 1408, which I generally enjoyed. Not at all a bad adaptation of King, though at times it did venture somewhat farther over the top than I could appreciate. Still, it did inspire me to dream about being in a haunted hotel, though the one I visited struck me as more annoying than traumatic.

Got back home this afternoon to find that two of the cats had managed to lock themselves in the bathroom overnight, and there was poop in the sink. Yeah, it was a stinky treat. At least their hearts were in the right place. Maybe next time they'll experiment with using the toilet.

I leave you with a shot of Dave and I making the best of it.

Unproductive...Perhaps. Fat and Happy...Definitely

Didn't manage a lick of writing tonight, which ordinarily would bring me no joy; however, I did enjoy a fine dinner of boiled dead crustacean at Red Lobster with my good friend Gina Farago, author of Ivy Cole and the Moon and its upcoming sequel Luna.
Ivy is currently in release by Berkley, and it's a damn fine read. Go out and get it right now. Luna is soon to appear in hardback from NeDeo Press. When it comes out, get it, too.

A Sale, a Check, and Mo*Con III in the works

It's been a nice couple of days on the writing front. Earlier today, I sold a reprint tale ("Now I Lay Me Down to Dream," which originally appeared in the Terminal Frights anthology) to Shroud magazine; even received contract and payment within hours of the story's acceptance. The Web site makes it look like a very promising market, so here's hoping. I believe my story will be appearing in the January 2008 premier issue. Cool beans.
Received word today from Sarob Press (sadly, now defunct) that a nice royalty check for The Nightmare Frontier is winging its way to me. Money is never a bad thing, but it's a shame they had to close up shop. Sarob produced beautiful books.
Also—I've accepted a very kind invitation to be a Guest of Honor at Mo*Con in June 2008, which Maurice Broaddus hosts at his church in Indianapolis; don't have much in the way of details yet, but Maurice's intro for last year's event, which starred authors Wrath James White, Gary Braunbeck and Brian Keene, may be viewed here: Mo*Con II

Booksigning in Elizabeth City, NC, next weekend

Just a reminder: I'll be signing books at Page After Page bookstore, Saturday, Nov. 10 from 12:00–3:00 p.m., so if you're in traveling distance of Elizabeth City and would like to stop by, it'd be great to meet you. I'll have copies of Blue Devil Island, The Last Trumpet, Balak, The Lebo Coven, and others.

Authors David Niall Wilson and Bill Ferguson will also be signing.

Trail of the Dead

Okay, so it's not really the trail of the dead, but being the day after Halloween, it's only fitting, right? I've taken a couple of days off from work to spend some time at the old homestead in Virginia. Today, I went hiking on the Doe Run Trail, outside of Martinsville. A beautiful, warm day; not like November at all. I did some searching around for the geocache (referenced October 14), but without a GPS, it's pretty much a needle in a haystack. Will try again next time—and perhaps leave one out there myself.

I did run up on a big old copperhead while going along the creek. Fortunately, it had the sense to slip into the water and swim away, and I had the good sense not to follow it.

Now, coming up here last night was deliciously spooky. After the trick-or-treaters were pretty much done (about 8:30-ish), I got in the car, headed up north of the border (yes, the NC/VA border, about an hour's drive), and decided to visit the old "Secret Place" that my brother and I used to frequent back in the late 80s/early 90s. It's an old dead-end road in the county where one used to be able to find the spooky ruins of some old houses, which we explored in depth. The way back to them is blocked off anymore, but the road itself is still pretty much the definition of creepy. Drove back there with the soundtrack to Night of Dark Shadows playing, got out, had a smoke, and savored the atmosphere for a while. It's pitch dark back there except for one opening in the trees where, many miles in the distance, you can see the lights of Martinsville. It was just the place to spend a little quiet time on Halloween night.

Perhaps I shall make a tradition of it.

Happy Happy Halloween

Halloween is the one day of the year I really look forward to going to the office. We have trick-or-treating, a costume contest, jack-o'-lantern carving, and I get to read one of my scary tales. A good crowd today—most everyone there, as a matter of fact. I read my latest, "Demon Jar," which will be featured at HorrorWorld next November. It's kind of edgy for work, but it went over pretty well, and some people really did appear to be creeped out.

That's my kind of Halloween.

Another Trip to the ER

Since my wife, Peg, has the rare ability to injure herself in ways that most people don't, we ended up at the emergency room last night from about midnight to 2:00 a.m. after she slammed her own hand in our car door. Nothing broken, but numerous stitches were required, and there will be significant pain for several days.

However, the Andersons' Halloween party was killer, as you can see below.

Halloween MMVII: The Search for Buckwheat

Another long-standing Halloween tradition for the Damned Rodan gang is to hit the Blue Ridge Parkway and have breakfast at Mabry Mill, where buckwheat pancakes beckon like a pristine city to a giant radioactively mutated rubber Japanese monster. Our friends, the Albaneses, have shared in this tradition for many years now, and this morning, well before sun-up, we undertook the excursion into the mountains. After three days, the rain finally gave up the ghost, so we had a beautiful drive up, with nice purty leaves and not a lick of traffic to contend with.

Tradition also compels us on this excursion to purchase our Halloween pumpkins at a little store on U.S. 58, near Stuart, VA. So, with nary a complaint, we did this thing and, while browsing the pumpkin patch, were treated to the happy sounds of "Fire on the Mountain" and other tunes by a bluegrass band playing in the parking lot. Also nice—the pumpkins were half price.

We get our buckwheat pancakes once a year as kind of a kick-off to Halloween week. Well, it's here and officially kicked off. Tonight, it's Halloween parties. The costume is ready. It's time to get scared. Real scared.

See:

Messages From a Dark Deity

I've received official acceptance of my short story, "Messages From a Dark Deity," for Elder Signs Press's Visages of the Void, an anthology devoted to ye gnarly old Nyarlathotep, the Messenger of the Great Old Ones, edited by Peter Worthy. Looks like it will be a late 2008 release.

In keeping with my long-standing tradition, I'm trying to fit in some scary flicks as we lead up to Halloween. Last night was my perennial favorite, House of Dark Shadows, and tonight, I put on the first half of the 1978 BBC production of Count Dracula, starring Louis Jourdan—easily my favorite adaptation of Drac. Louis Jourdan doesn't exactly fit Stoker's physical description, but he nails the role in every other way. Far as I'm concerned, his portrayal may be the best ever to appear on the screen (in this case, the small screen).

I still have to get to Curse (Night) of the Demon to make Halloween official; I'll finish Dracula tomorrow night, and perhaps get Demon in on Thursday. I've half a mind to hit the theater to see 30 Days of Night, but we'll see what the other half says over the next day or so.

It's a good week to make an escape into horror. Jeez, and it's only Tuesday. The weekend can't get here fast enough.

Back From Book Em

Spent a really nice weekend with Elizabeth Massie and Cortney Skinner in Waynesboro, VA, and participated in Book Em on Saturday, which is a big benefit for literacy with lots of authors in attendance. The crowd seemed much smaller this year than last; I sold a few books, but only about half as many as last year, and, sadly, I heard the same from a number of writers. To the credit of the organizers, things were generally well-run and actually seemed a bit more streamlined than last year. I was on a decent little panel, along with Matthew Warner and several others, about how to get published, and I took part in a podcast for the Augusta Free Press, the local independent newspaper (which may be found here). There's another set for next year, and I'll happily attend, but I hope they can drum up a bigger crowd with better and more meaningful publicity, and perhaps change the venue to something more inviting than the local high school gymnasium.

Naturally, the best part of the weekend was hanging out with Beth, Cort, Matt and Deena Warner, and Barb and Charlie Lawson, all of whom rate as friends of exceptional stature. Last night, we were treated to a viewing of Trail of the Screaming Forehead, for which Cort did a bunch of the creative work. It's the latest from Larry Blamire, who brought us The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra and Tales From the Pub. It was damn funny, very much in the same league as Lost Skeleton. They've got to get this one a general release very soon, if only on DVD.

Today, I went with my mummy to Winston-Salem to see my brother, Phred, in a production of Romanoff and Juliet (written by Peter Ustinov) by the Stained Glass Playhouse. Phred played one of the funny soldiers. Far as I know, he's planning to do some more work with them, which is a cool thing; he hasn't done any theater since high school, but you'd almost think he knew what he was doing. All of the actors were quite good, very professional. Enjoyed myself immensely.

Oh yeah—Beth's got a book trailer up for her new novel, Homeplace. Check it out below.

We Loves Our BBQ, Book Em, and the Great Pumpkin

Last night on the local news, there was a notice about the Greensboro Police Club's annual barbecue fixin', and as I am a barbecue nut, it more than caught my attention. The cooks stayed up all last night roasting about a ton of dead animal and then sold it at the clubhouse today. So I drove up yonder after work, picked up a passle of it, and brought it home. Hoooey! I ate way, way, way too much. But I couldn't stop myself.

Tomorrow, I'm off to Book Em, the benefit book sale for literacy, in Waynesboro, VA. Lots of authors from the region (and elsewhere) will be there selling books, with a portion of the proceeds going to promote literacy in Virginia jails. If you're anywhere in traveling distance and care to drop by, please do. It's at Waynesboro High School. Writer Matt Warner is also slated be there; I expect the two of us will pretty much make up the horror contingent this year.

And in dire need of some of that Halloween spirit, I put on the DVD of It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. I think it worked. I'm starting to feel scary.

Walking the Rail Trails

I thank all the inhabitants of the Black Lodge that my old hometown in Virginia's piedmont is still a largely undeveloped, lushly wooded area, as yet untouched by vermin who would simply bulldoze it, drop some hideous and utterly needless complex into it, and take their money and run. Anyone who knows me or follows my exploits pretty much knows that hiking the woods is one of my favorite pastimes, and it's especially meaningful back in my old hometown, which still retains much of the character it's had since long before I was born.

Today, I set out for a destination new to me: the Doe Run Trail, which is a series of trails on the land that borders the old DuPont plant site (where my dad worked for 30 years). DuPont is no longer there, but before the company closed down, it donated all that land to the city, which has taken the excellent step of putting in hiking trails. There are a number of trails in this area that have recently opened, and, eventually, they are destined to link up to create one long, scenic path, mostly bordering the Smith River through Henry County.

A portion of the Doe Run Trail goes along the old rail spur that went to DuPont. It runs through several miles of dense woodland, and is essentially the only sign of human habitation therein. Something about rail lines running through the forest has fascinated me since I was a little kid, and it was just damn cool to get out there and follow one for a ways today. There's a genuine sense of isolation out there, and the silence today struck me as profound. No sounds of animals, airplanes, traffic, breeze...anything (at least until the trail brought me close to the main road again). I had the Twin Peaks score playing in the car on the way to and from the trail, which was the perfect soundtrack for such an excursion.

I wish I had done a search on the Web before I went out there, though. I discovered that most of the trails around here are populated with geocaches, and an entry for the Doe Run Trail was made just today. People taking part in the activity leave hidden somewhere around the trail a container with a logbook and various other items, so that others, following latitude and longitude clues, can find them and add to the cache. I recognized a couple of clues on the Web site entry immediately, and it would have been neat to find the cache and add my name to the logbook. Next time...

And now, it's back to work on "Demon Jar."

A Birthday in the Mountains

Some days turn out rather special, and I'd count today as one of them. For my mom's birthday, Peg and I took her up to Chateau Morrisette on the Blue Ridge Parkway, where we had a dinner that I'm pretty sure hit the mark of perfection (beef tournedos, rare, with the chateau's own red wine sauce), along with good wine and gorgeous scenery. The weather couldn't have been nicer, and the mountains were as beautiful as they can be—at least before the leaves turn for fall. Chateau Morrisette is one of my favorite places around; in fact, Peg and I celebrated our anniversary there, back in August. They were having a big music festival today, with the Embers playing, which we didn't know about when I made the reservations, so I ended up having to park about a mile away, but it didn't impact the service at the restaurant, which was excellent.

For the rest of the day, I've been hiding out in Dad's old den, still hard at work on my new tale, which is tentatively titled "Demon Jar." Progress still seems a bit slow, but it's relatively steady, and yeah, it's a creepy tale. I like that.

Chowderhead

Spent the last couple of days pounding the keys for a new tale, which I'm writing for a specific market. For all the pounding, it doesn't seem to be moving very quickly, but at least it's heading in the right direction. It's been a rather ugly week, which I won't get into here, and certain situations have about left me quite spent, energy-wise, so I'll take whatever consolation in having made this much progress.

Possible (very) good news on another of the writing fronts, but I'm not at liberty to disclose details at the moment, so I won't. I shall happily keep you-who-really-want-to-know in suspenders.

The day's highlight was easily the batch of spicy clam chowder I made for dinner. Mine is a Manhattan-style concoction, which I devised just by throwing stuff in a pot. Tell you what, I'll give you my recipe. Bear in mind, when I make it, all of the below are subject to much variation.

Ingredients:

Four 6.5-ounce cans of minced clams

Four or five stalks of celery (diced)

Four or five carrots (or equivalent in baby carrots) (diced)

Whole white or yellow onion (diced)

Two jalapeno or habanero peppers (diced)

Two whole lemons

Two tbsp. soy sauce

Two tbsp. Worcestershire sauce

One tbsp. Tabasco sauce

Two–three tbsp. Old Bay seasoning

One tsp. salt Dash of dill weed

Dash of garlic salt

Two 10.75-ounce cans Campbell's Tomato soup

32-oz. bottle of Mott's Clamato juice

Next...

• Dump the clams, diced veggies, spices, and sauces into a large pot.

• Squeeze in the juice of the lemons.

• Heat on medium-high until liquid is bubbling happily.

• Stir in the cans of tomato soup.

• Once the liquid begins to bubble again, add the whole bottle of Clamato juice and stir vigorously for several minutes.

• Reduce heat to simmer, and let it cook for 30–40 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Makes eight to ten servings. I often add more in the hot pepper department, but I'm a masochist.

A Gross FEAST

Last night's scary movie was Feast, from 2005, produced by Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, and Wes Craven. I hadn't heard much about it—primarily a couple of negative reviews—so I went in with fairly low expectations. I actually ended up pleasantly surprised, for what we have here is a fast-moving, oftentimes gripping little monster movie, much in the vein of Tremors. Pretty damn gross and oftentimes funny.

Oh yes, there is gore aplenty. The movie starts with a car accident in the desert, and the survivors make their way to an isolated tavern. They explain that there are murderous things out in the dark, and "they're hungry." That they are, for within minutes, these ferocious, half-seen monstrosities with nasty great teeth launch an attack on the bar. Carnage abounds, and after the first bloody assault, the patrons realize they are trapped inside the building. For the rest of the movie's running time, the monsters devour some hapless victims, suffer a few retaliatory blows, then come round to do it all over again.

Unlike Tremors, however, Feast is handicapped by a cast of characters who are almost to the last one repulsive and, in some cases, as brutal as the monsters looking to kill them. While several of them display some entertaining wit, it's still exceedingly difficult to give a hoot about them, and only the movie's breakneck pace keeps the people scenes from ruining the whole business. Clu Gulager, one of my favorite character actors, manages to partially redeem the cast; with his typically easy-going and more genial demeanor, his role is marginally more engaging than the younger cast members'.

Humor abounds, occasionally falling flat, but succeeding just frequently enough to counteract the genuinely nasty taste of these characters. There's no earthly reason the writers couldn't have drawn people with more redeeming personalities; not everyone on the planet is a self-centered, foul-mouthed, lying, cheating piece of shit, and while tossing a few of them in the mix might suggest an authentic cross-section, populating the majority of the cast with them reeks of, at best, pandering to viewers' basest expectations ("They're gonna die, so they GOTTA be terrible, they just gotta!"), or, at worst, a genuine, lamentable tendency toward the misanthropic.

While the shortcomings in the character department are critical, they don't completely undermine the movie's entertainment value. So, with some reservations, I'm going to give Feast a B–. Had the filmmakers opted for more appealing people scenes, a la Tremors, it might have been a really terrific monster flick.

Eyes Without a Face, Part Deux: Roadkill

Evidently, yon possum who adorned our fence the other night (see October 4) was one of a family, as one of its relatives had a bad night tonight. This evening, Peg discovered an expired specimen—far larger than the first—lying on the road, right at the edge of our driveway...poor thing. We didn't want it to get mutilated any further by vehicles, so we packed it up in a garbage bag, and I sailed it over the fence.

I went to Raleigh today to do a panel on writing with Scott Nicholson and Alexandra Sokoloff, which was not exactly standing room only, but fun enough. Always good to see Scott and Alex, and we at least had a fairly enthusiastic little group of attendees.

Just on principle, I ordinarily will have absolutely nothing to do with American Movie Classics; way back in its early days, I loved that channel, but ever since they went to running commercials, editing films (for running time and content), and formatting them to fit my screen, I have pretty much boycotted the station. I don't know which "movie people" are into butchered films, but I am definitely not one of them. However, last night at 3:00 a.m., they frigging ran The She Creature, which I have not seen since childhood, and I have wanted to for years. So I recorded the thing and watched it this evening as one of those pre-Halloween treats I allow myself to indulge in. At least I could zap the commercials.

I knew this was no great film by any stretch, but I have to say, it featured the most sedate cast I ever saw. I don't believe anyone raised his or her voice over the course of the film, even when being attacked by the beast. Tom Conway gives a new meaning to the style of acting known as "wooden." In fact, I suspect he was supported by one of those T-bars you hang scarecrows from. Regardless, I enjoyed the crap out of it, cheezy monster and everything. It even had a couple of fairly eerie scenes as the critter emerged from its hazy past into the present. I'm glad I watched it, for sure, though it'll probably be another quarter century before I sit down to do it again.

Eyes Without a Face

There's something slightly heart-stopping about going out after dark to take out the trash, only to hear a sudden scrabbling on the fence behind the trash cans, and then see a big old pair of glowing eyes staring down at you.

Okay, well, they weren't that big, but they were glowing, and the opossum they belonged to didn't look like a terribly happy camper. He bared his great big long tuskies a few times and hissed a bit, obviously perturbed by certain thoughtless people making a racket when he was trying to sleep. I guess if our positions had been reversed, my eyes would have glowed too, and, certainly, if I had great big long tuskies, I would bare them.

The Halloween atmosphere is gradually beginning to settle in. I ordered the components of the costume for our friends' upcoming party. Just for good measure, I started up the 1991 Dark Shadows series on DVD this evening, and the annual craving for It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown is beginning to build. I might be able to hold out a few more days. We'll see.

(Nah, I don't like Halloween, not one little bit.)

HorrorWorld Fiction

Thanks to the intensely wicked Nanci Kalanta, unsuspecting readers will be subject to one of my horrific tales next year at HorrorWorld. I signed the papers today and will announce the details when there are details to announce. I think I have something up my sleeve that's just the ticket for this. Will have to meditate a bit and tug on the old winch that opens up the brain-flue, but given an opening in the schedule and a spot of good weather, I think we'll have a winner.

At any rate, you should be checking out HorrorWorld anyway for smashing fiction, interviews, reviews, news, and author message boards (including my own, sadly neglected one, which I really need to remedy). The site is updated each month. You can check out my HW interview from some time back right here: HorrorWorld Interviews Some Old Dude (archived at my Web site).