Recent Reads From HELL Part IV

 Here's a quick rundown on a few books I recently read.

Spawn of Hell by William Schoell

What can I say about this one? Not much, unfortunately. Kind of an interesting premise...kind of. Plagued by uninteresting characters, more typos than you typically see in mass market paperbacks, and just kind of typical in every way. I read this one a few weeks ago and I can't really remember much about it. It just wasn't all that remarkable. Creatures living under an abandoned building in a small town, devouring those unfortunate enough to get in their way. They get a taste for human flesh and become more bold. This was Schoell's debut. It's not a bad book, but it's not very good at all. I will try another of his novels some day. I know I'd hate to be judged by my first two books. They're not very good either.

The Silent Enemy by Ernest T. Jahn

This book had a fascinating premise, and being set in Hawaii was a plus, considering I've only read a few books set in the Aloha State. Unfortunately that where's anything good ends. It was readable, but in a pulp sort of way. The back cover copy promises mutated seaweed, and though there are hints of that, I felt it was a missed opportunity. Most of the story is bad character development and terrible dialogue. It felt like the book was written by whoever wrote old episodes of Scooby Doo Where Are You? That's not a knock on Scooby Doo (I'm a fan), but I expect more out of a novel. A lot more. A quick read, there are a few things to like, but I felt like this story could have been so much more.

Fright Night by John Skipp and Craig Spector

This is officially the first movie novelization I've ever read, and it didn't disappoint! I've seen the film several times, but not in a while. The book brought it all back in vivid detail. It was well written, as you would expect from Skipp and Spector, but clearly it wasn't their own original work. It has their fingerprints all over it, but I felt it was far more stripped down than their other books. I'm very interested in reading novelizations of movies I'm even more familiar with just to see the differences. This one was a hell of a lot of fun.

Toplin by Michael McDowell

Despite my adoration of McDowell's work, this one just didn't do it for me. I DNF'd it (to those in the back, that means Did Not Finish). The writing was solid, and very unlike McDowell's southern gothic style prose that I'm used to. I wanted to like the story, but I just didn't find it very engaging. It was almost dream-like, which made it very confusing. What turned out to be the final straw was when the narrator continued to detail the six or seven suits he has in his closet. I'm sure his obsession with those suits was indicative of some kind of
mental illness he was dealing with, but I just couldn't take it any more. This book was originally published around '85 in a special limited edition, but wasn't published in a mass market edition until the 90's when the Dell Abyss line picked it up. Dell Abyss published some amazing books, and also some that were a bit too experimental for me. Toplin fits in the latter category.

That's all for now. I'm currently working through the wonderful stories in Ronald Kelly's collection The Essential Sick Stuff, Prophecy by David Seltzer, and...I really want to read One For the Road by Wesley Southard,
but I can't remember where I put the book!!!

I'm Attending CreepyCon 2021 in Knoxville!

 I just paid for my table at CreepyCon 2021 in Knoxville, Tennessee August 20 - 22. This will be my first event in a couple of years, the last one being the Oddities Expo in San Diego. I did that show with a handful of local authors, and all of us did very well, especially for a one-day event. I'll be vending CreepyCon by myself (well, with the help of my wife and son), though I have it on good authority that there will be at least a few other authors there as well.

If you're going to the event, look for me in the artist's room. I will have copies of most of my books, including Chew on This!, Death Obsessed, Shallow Graves, Stronger Than Hate, Double Barrel Vol. 3 and more! I might even have a couple copies of the Thunderstorm Books edition of Mojave Mud Caves.

For more information on the event, check out their website HERE.

Recent Reads From Hell Pt. III

 Here are some books I've read recently, some vintage paperbacks and others newer. If the book looks like something you might want to read, click the tile to buy a copy (some of the older books might be out of print).

The End of the World by Dan Henk

With The End of the World Dan Henk wrote a fairly epic sci-fi/military thriller that doesn't tread the usual territory of an end of the world as we know it type of story. Where as most if these stories focus on survival, this one weaves a tapestry detailing why the world is crumbling, and it's not zombies or a contagion as in so many other books of this nature.

Henk is a hell of a writer. The prose is rich and beautiful, though his attention to detail often goes a bit overboard for my taste. The characters are fully developed and believable as they deal with the reality that life as they know it has changed forever, which is refreshing. The focus is primarily on a young punk kid and what we're introduced to as a man who seems to have been absorbed into some strange suit and is losing his humanity. Two interesting characters who are on the run for very different reasons than mere survival.

Ultimately this was a fantastic read, particularly for fans of military sci-fi or apocalyptic yarns. Some of the better writing I've read in a while, though at times I felt the descriptions could have been dialed back a bit. The interior illustrations were an awesome bonus! 

 

 The Drive-In by Joe R. Lansdale

Here's a book that I've heard a lot about. It's regarded a seminal work in early bizarro, you know, before there was even a term for oddball fiction that bends the rules and tests the boundaries. Knowing that made me exited and a little bit hesitant to read this one since I've never been a big bizarro fan. Also, it's one of those Lansdale stories that everyone seems to love, right along with the short story "The Night They Missed the Horror Show" and the novel The Bottoms. I didn't care for that particular short story, and though I liked The Bottoms, it's far from Lansdale's best (of what I've read, that placeholder is Mucho Mojo).

I liked the first half of The Drive-In quite a bit. The set up was great, Lansdale's writing was just as off the wall, fun, and bonkers as I'd have expected for this type of story. Yeah, it's a weird story, but that's really all there is to it. By the end of the first half I was already done. I'd hoped the second half did something more, but it was pretty much more of what I'd already read. Ultimately it was a bit of a letdown. 

I've read a bunch of Lansdale's novels and this is the first one I didn't really like. No big deal. He's a brilliant writer, this one just wasn't for me. I'm not into the whole bizarro genre, so that might have had something to do with it, though I have read a few Lansdale shorts that walk bizzaro pavemtent that were fantastic ("Love Doll: A Fable" being one of them, where a guy's sex doll comes to life and becomes more than he bargained for).

Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones

Here's another one that came highly recommended. It's up for a Bram Stoker Award this year. I really liked the set-up, but the story went down a completely different avenue than I expected, and though I respect that from the standpoint of a writer (I mean, anytime a story veers away from the expected, that's a good thing, right?), I ultimately felt let down by this novella.

This is the first book I've read by Stephen Graham Jones. He's one of those names I see everywhere. I even saw one of his books prominently displayed at a Barnes and Noble a few years ago. The guy can write, no doubt. He has a voice that's very distinct, however I found it difficult to follow. being it was a first person narrative, I'm wondering if all of his books have the same style. That was the hardest part about reading it, just stringing the sentences together and figuring out what they meant. That sounds harsh, but I had to really get into the zone whenever I picked up the story. Once I got myself in the Night of the Mannequins mindset, I was okay.

I didn't hate this story, but I didn't love it either. Despite a writing style that I didn't really mesh with, I just would have liked to see the narrative go in a completely different direction. I won't say anything more since this one is still fairly new. It's definitely worth checking out. 

Nightmare by S. K. Epperson

This is one of those old books published by Leisure with a well used motif of embossed eyes and a spider's web gracing the cover. I love the cover art. Does it fit the story? Yeah, sure it does. Is this a horror story, as Leisure marketed it? No, not really. It's a mystery with horrific elements.

A small group of people are flown to a remote location where a clinic (more of an asylum-type facility) treats women suffering from multiple personality disorders. That's just plain out implausable, really, but I don't know. It was written in the late eighties. Maybe such a place could have existed. I'm thinking much further in the past, but maybe I'm clouded by modern times. Anyway, the setting is very typical for a mystery. Put a munch of people together in a remote location, someone dies. Whodunnit? Is it the different personalities of some of the patients? Is it the crazy 600 pound woman who sits up in her room watching everything through a series of invasive servalance cameras and and listening to gossip with speakers? And so on, and so on.

Not a bad story at all. I enjoyed it, but I saw it going in so many more interesting directions. I would have liked to have read the horror version of this story that Leisure promised me when they categorized this book as such.

Well, there you go. Not a great bunch this time, but that's how it is with fiction. I'll post another bunch in a month or so (I'm a terribly slow reader!). I hope I read something that wows me. Right now I'm reading Spawn From Hell by William Schoell and The Silent Enemy by, well, I'm not sure. That one is in my car (my lunch-time read), and I'm not familiar with the author. It's an old Zebra from 1980 about killer kelp...or you'd think that by reading the back cover copy? Misleading? Maybe. You'll have to wait and see.

Splatterpunk Awards

 The Splatterpunk Awards have been nominated and guess what? For the first time I have a book up for an award.

Chew On This!, the anthology I edited for Blood Bound Books, has been nominated for a Splatterpunk Award. To say I'm over the moon about this is an understatement. I've been published since 2008 (2007?), and I've never been up for an award. I'm genuinely thrilled for this.

Chew On This! is a project neither myself nor Blood Bound Books has taken lightly. We worked hard on this project and churned out something that I hope more readers get their hands on so we can create even more momentum. Even if the book doesn't take the award at KillerCon later this year, it's a honor to have been acknowledged.

You can get a list of all the nominations HERE.

Grab a copy of Chew On This! HERE!

How Royalties Saved My Ass

I moved from San Diego, California to Tennessee just over a year ago. It was a great move because I pretty well despise California and my family could finally buy a house and not just tread water getting nowhere fast. Moving sucks, and moving across the country is even more challenging. So much goes into the move from renting a storage container for all your stuff, selling off what you cannot bring with, settling in to the new place, getting a job, changing the address on credit cards and whatnot.

Changing credit unions.

I changed my phone number and credit union soon after settling in. I could have held onto both, but I don't have too many friends holding onto that old number, so I figured my chances of getting a job would improve with a local number. I could have continued to use my credit union, but it was a local San Diego credit union without any local business fronts here in Tennessee. Once I had the new account I had to start transferring my money. It took a few months since I could only transfer so much at a time (it's not like I was loaded or anything, but I made decent money in California, at least it would be considered decent in many other states--in California I made a enough to merely survive).

I thought I had my bases covered, had changed payment options on things like PayPal and whatnot. I drained nearly all the money from my San Diego account, but never got around to closing it. With this stimulus payment going out I realized that since I owed California a ridiculous amount of taxes from 2019 (thanks, Cali, go rot in Hell!), I hadn't ever changed the bank account I have on file with the IRS (I haven't gotten a refund in years, so they've had the old account on file going way back). I suppose the last stimulus payment had gone into my San Diego account and had to be transferred over to my Tennessee account. I couldn't remember if it had. Let's face it, that was early 2020, which feels like ten years ago at this point.

Well, I couldn't log onto my old account, so I had to call. No stimulus payment in the account, however I'm told I have a negative balance. The operator says there have been a string of PayPal transactions. Oh shit! I asked him to find out if it is fraud. After a moment he says nope, it's coming from your PayPal account. Double oh shit!

I look into it, and sure enough, PayPal has a stupid method of doing things. I'd changed my credit union on file, but not my debit card. As it turns out money deposited into my PayPal is funneled into my bank on file, and money I spend using PayPal is withdrawn from my debit card. Sigh. So all this time I had my old debit card on file pulling PayPal monies from Ebay purchases, my son's video game purchases and who knows what else. All coming out of a bank account with very little money in it. How bad was this negative balance going to be, and why didn't the old credit union put a stop to the negative transactions. Seems like a red flag to me.

When I got home I was scared to even check my old bank account. I kept thinking that maybe the stimulus money had gone through only to pay back a portion of the massive negative balance I was going to discover.

My negative balance? $81 and some change. What!?

I go back through the last several months on my San Diego account. There's a lot of red with some green here and there. Green? What the hell? I look a little further. All of the deposits highlighted in green are from Amazon. I sit back and think. Why would Amazon be giving me money? Duh, idiot! I forgot to change the bank on file with my Amazon publishing account. Those are my royalties. I'll be damned, but those royalties over the past six months have been paying for all of my PayPal purchases, right up until the end of the year. Only the last two PayPal transactions weren't covered. My old credit union covered overdrafts at a fee of $32 per overdraft.

Had it not been for those royalty payments, I wonder just how far in the red with overdraft fees I would have been. I don't even want to think about it.

That, folks, is how royalties saved my ass.

Oh, yeah, and still no stimulus payment. Go figure.

If you want to help pay off that negative balance, you could always buy one of my books. Check out my Amazon page HERE. And if you'd rather not read one of my books, go check out that new Wesley Southard book Cruel Summer. It just came out from Death's Head Press.

Recent Reads From Hell Pt. II

I've been toying with the idea of starting a YouTube channel where I talk about books I've read and maybe feature some of the books in my ever-growing collection. But like so many things, it's just a thought that dances through my brain. I actually tried recording a video and it looked terrible. One of the great hindrances for me concerning promoting my books is the fact that I know dick about technology. I can't create promo images, promo art, bookmarks, videos that look decent. So, for now, I'll have to come back to this neglected blog.

Here are a few books I've read over the past several months and a few words on each one. Not reviews, just thoughts.

The Manitou by Graham Masterton

Masterton's debut, and what a debut it is. Reading an author's first book is always a bit of a crap shoot. Even great authors sometimes have mediocre first novels. I won't name any here, but I know my first novel (first few novels!) was pretty shitty. Some authors come out of the gate with a masterpiece, like Melanie Tem's Prodigal or Kathe Koja's The Cipher. I wouldn't call The Manitou a masterpiece, but it sure is a hell of a good time. I imagine it was one of the earliest Native American curse type horror stories (there were a lot of them in the horror boom of the 80s). I know I've seen the movie adaptation, but it was many years ago and I don't really remember it. I have a feeling I liked it, but who knows. I used to watch all the horror I could get my hands on, and clearly it wasn't that memorable. The book, however, has stuck in my mind. I've read a few Masterton books this year, and he's rapidly becoming a favorite.

The Magpie Coffin by Wile E. Young

The first of the breakout series of Splatter Western books from the great Death's Head Press. Full disclosure: I'm a Death's Head author, but that has no reflection on my thoughts about this or any other DHP books I feature on my blog. This was, hands down, a fun, gripping read. Kind of like a Sergio Leone spaghetti western, only much darker. If Blondie, The Man with No Name, from the Fistful of Dollars trilogy were a real bad motherfucker (I mean, he is, but I'm talking sadistic here) you'd have the protagonist of this book. He's a fucking maniac, but that's okay. A worthy beginning of what has proven to be a great series of books. Keep 'em coming!

Spawn by Shaun Hutson

This book was kind of nuts, especially for its time. Imagine the guy who works at the hospital tossing refuse such as aborted babies into the incinerator. He's got some serious trauma from his past that causes him to save these aborted fetuses. If that's not crazy enough, imagine what happens when he buries them around the shack he lives in and then lightning strikes the ground! Look, what happens in this book is absolutely batshit crazy. Seriously. You have to take this stuff with a grain of salt. I took a break halfway through and read another book before returning to finish this one. That was mostly because Hutson was telling two stories that eventually merged in the end. The crazy fetus story was engrossing (emphasis on GROSS!), but the escaped mental patient serial killer story was kind of meh. The way they came together worked, and sort of made it all worth it, but it felt like half the book was all aces and the other half was a sleeper. I believe this was Hutson's second or third book after Slugs, and it shows that he improved his craft. Slugs is fun, but this one is even better, both the writing and the plot.

The Uninvited by John Farris

Of the books I've read recently, this one was by far the best. Farris is a brilliant author, a master at the craft, and a exquisite story teller. Interestingly, of all the books of his I've read the only one I didn't like was The Fury, and that's the one he's probably most known for. Oh well. The Uninvited follows a teenage girl who accidentally hits a guy with her and then becomes invested in his recovery after he comes down with amnesia. He has nowhere to go and her father, who's a famous artist, allows him to stay it their house. As she spends time with the guy trying to get him to remember his past, they develop a relationship, but he's...kinda weird. This is one of those books you find yourself deeply invested in and then shit just goes haywire. The greatest part is that I didn't see it coming, the IT being some of the big reveals. This is one of those books I've had on my shelf for years, but never bothered giving a read. Who am I kidding. My shelves are loaded with vintage paperbacks that, unfortunately, I won't get to. This one in particular has been hanging around for well over a decade. I'm glad I gave it a spin.

I hope to blog more about books I've read, but who knows. In the meantime, my latest anthology Chew on This! has been published by Blood Bound Books and is available in print and digital formats. See the blog post below for details.

Chew on This! OUT NOW!

 

 

Chew on This! has everything you need to satiate your appetite for the strange and macabre. 

Tonight’s menu is a fifteen-course meal of subtle and atmospheric tales all the way down to the grisly, blood-drenched extremes.

Creepy restaurants, treacherous take-out, forbidden feasts, and more!

We’ve got horror so good you can taste it!

Dig in!

Featuring: Kristopher Triana – K. Trap Jones – Nikki Noir - Mark C. Scioneaux – Vivian Kasley – Chad Stroup – John McNee – Victorya Chase – Armand Rosamilia – Sarah Johnson and Robert Bose – S.C. Mendes -– Shenoa Carroll-Bradd – Sylvia Anne Telfer – Tonia Brown – Ronald Kelly – Chad Lutzke

 

Purchase HERE in the US, and HERE in the UK. Available worldwide through Amazon.

Recent Reads From HELL!

It's been a while since I wrote about the recent books I've read. In this post I will focus on the horror boom books I've recently read. The first two I actually read earlier this year. I started this post and never finished it.

Ever since reading Pin by Andrew Neiderman, I have been trying to include his books in a somewhat regular rotation (there really is no regular rotation--I read many different authors). At the end of last year I read his book The Immortals (Pocket Books, 1991). I have a theory about Neiderman's work. He was published by about every mass market publisher in the 80s, namely Pocket Books, Berkley and Zebra. So far the Zebra books I've read by him are terrible. I mean, they're so bad I feel like he hired a sixth grader to write them. The Pocket Books novels are written and edited well. Maybe he had a shit editor at Zebra. Maybe those are first drafts and his Pocket Books editor worked magic. Who knows.

The Immortals (Pocket Books, 1991) is a story about vanity and the greed, plain and simple. How far will a man go for riches, and to what ends will vain people go for looks. Seems timely, doesn't it. I won't get into the nitty gritty of the story or plot. Basically a salesman takes a job selling miracle cream that works almost instantaneously...but to what end? People become addicted to the stuff, the salesman becomes addicted to the money, and shit goes downhill quickly from there.

It was a fun read. Nowhere near as good as Pin, but probably a runner up for me. The themes are just as relevant today as when he wrote the book, which I found interesting. The best scene has to do with a dolly that the man's employer gives to his daughter. I won't give it away, but I gotta say that was some gruesome shit. It's a fun read, but nothing groundbreaking.

I also read Ronald Kelly's Something Out There (Zebra, 1991) earlier this year. Above I mentioned that it seemed as if Neiderman had a crummy editor at Zebra. This is certainly not the case with Ronald Kelly. That or Ronald is just a far superior writer. This is my second Kelly book, the first being Fear, which is a stand-out coming of age story. Something Out There aka The Dark'Un, is about A family secret on Pale Dove Mountain concerning a race of beings that have lived in concert with humans for many years, but are being pushed to their breaking point by greedy developers. Again, a timely theme, or perhaps a theme that never loses its potency. I live very close to where the story takes place and I see the destruction greedy developers wreck on once beautiful hills, and it's heartbreaking.

I don't want to get into the plot too much. I enjoyed this book, though in the third act it sort of became a men's adventure novel. I'm not a fan of action movies or books, so that part didn't appeal to me. Otherwise, the story is well crafted from beginning to end, with and array of interesting and memorable characters. After reading a couple of Ronald Kelly novels I'm truly shocked that he wasn't rubbing elbows with King and McCammon on the New York Times bestseller list with his work coming out in shiny hardback editions. If you are a fan of those authors, you absolutely have to give Ronald Kelly's books a try. You won't be disappointed.

My most recent Paperback From Hell read was Child of Darkness by David B. Silva (Leisure, 1986). What en excellent story this was. A coming of age story about two young brothers taken in by their aunt and uncle after their parents are torched in the family barn. One of the brothers is suffering from some darkness within, a darkness that is responsible for the fire. Now that they are under a new roof with auntie and uncle, the darkness wants out.

 I liked this one a lot. It was dark and moody, fueled by rich atmosphere. A slow burn that really gets under your skin. There is a small cast of characters, namely the two brothers and their aunt and uncle, which I really like. Too many characters can be hard to focus on (although Ronald Kelly does that with expertise in the aforementioned Something Out There). I really like books that get into the characters' psyche, and Silva worked wonders with a kid who has a few psyches in him. Though Silva's books aren't easy to find (I'm really not sure if they're in print or not, but this old Leisure paperback I have is the only one I've ever seen), but this one is well worth keeping your eye out for.

Chew on This! Up For Pre-Order!

That's right! Chew on This! is up for pre-order. This is a project I've been working on with Blood Bound Books for quite a while now, so I am beyond happy to see that publication day is coming soonish.


Chew on This! has everything you need to satiate your appetite for the strange and macabre.

Tonight’s menu is a fifteen-course meal of subtle and atmospheric tales all the way down to the grisly, blood-drenched extremes.

Creepy restaurants, treacherous take-out, forbidden feasts, and more!

We’ve got horror so good you can taste it!

Dig in!

Featuring: Kristopher Triana – K. Trap Jones – Nikki Noir - Mark C. Scioneaux – Vivian Kasley – Chad Stroup – John McNee – Victorya Chase – Armand Rosamillia – Sarah Johnson and Robert Bose – S.C. Mendes -– Shenoa Carroll-Bradd – Sylvia Anne Telfer – Tonia Brown – Ronald Kelley – Chad Lutzke

 Grab your pre-order HERE for just .99 cents!

Shallow Graves

Out now form Death's Head Press: SHALLOW GRAVES by Robert Essig and Jack Bantry

"Shallow Graves isn’t afraid to go where most horror stories dare not tread. It may be a little short for some readers, and a bit too disturbing for others. However, this isn’t a collection that should be forgotten about." --Cultured Vultures (read full review HERE)

"Fans of Robert Essig and/or Jack Bantry do not want to miss this eclectic collection. Extreme Horror fans who have not had the pleasure of reading these authors also do not want to miss this." --Bibliophilia Templum (read full review HERE)

"If you’re a fan of in your face, brutal horror, this is a collection for you." -- Steel Rain Book Reviews (read full review HERE)


Keep an eye out for some behind the scenes info on how each of these stories came to be, which will be posted sometime soon at SplatterpunkZine.


You can find Shallow Graves in the US here, the UK here, Canada here, and whichever Amazon platform you use to find kick ass books.

Double Barrel Vol. 3 COMING SOON!

The cover for the third installment of the Pint Bottle Press Double Barrel series has been released. There is a fantastic round of authors in this one, including myself. Just look at that cover art!

Double Barrel means double the stories. My contributions to this fine anthology of horror are called "From Unclean Spells" and "Fuel For the King of Death". I won't give anything away, but one story could be classified as a creature feature, and the other is set in the world of my novel Death Obsessed.

Coming soon!

The Fungus ... Some Thoughts Mushrooming in My Brain

I just read Harry Adam Knight's The Fungus, and I have to say, there wasn't one mention of the phrase "there's a fungus among us" in the entire book (unless it was in that part I skimmed...), and that kind of bums me out a bit.

So, The Fungus. What can I say? The beginning was great, engaging, creepy. The kind of horror I like. Maybe a little light on the character development, but we're talking about a book called The Fungus here. About mushrooms taking over the world. Well, the UK.

The second act turned into a goddamned military thriller, a watered down men's adventure book. That bored me silly. I'm not a fan of military fiction, so I skimmed and eventually just skipped ahead to act three. Honestly, those pages weren't missed. Act two, for the most part, was a giant unnecessary intermission. A way to take the plot from point A to point Z that could have been covered in a chapter at most. Could be my unfavorable look at military fiction, though, I suppose.

The third act was okay, but at this point I realized how weak the plot was. Basically there's an epidemic of mutating fungus that is rapidly taking over the population of England. A small group of people are set out in an armored vehicle to find the scientist responsible for the outbreak. The dynamic between the small group of people could have been dynamite, but turned out to be a missed opportunity. For me, less action in act two and more drama between the group would have worked better for a horror story, but then the characters would have had to be fleshed out a bit more. Most of them were unlikable, which means they would have had to be fleshed out even more so that we could at least relate to them in some way.

The end was meh. The reveals were kind of predictable, and I was left hoping my next read knocks my socks off. Books of this nature (I'm looking at Hutson's Slugs and Herbert's Rats) are often idea stories that would work a lot better were they very short novellas rather than full-on novels. But it was the 80s. Bloated doorstops were in order, and though The Fungus is slender in comparison to many of the tomes that were published at the time, it's still needs the fat trimmed. Not every story is a novel idea. Some of them are shorts.

This was published as Death Spore in the States. I was lucky enough to score the Star edition, pictured above (one of my favorite covers!). The only other Knight book I have is Slimer. I will eventually get to that one. It has something to do with Ghostbusters, right?

Up next will be either In Darkness Waiting by John Shirley or Something Out There by Ronald Kelley. Unless I start reading yet another book and finish it first. Both of these are very good so far.

The Future of This Blog

I usually do a year in review post at the beginning of the year, but I'm going to skip that, for the most part. Truth is, I hardly used the blog in 2019. This was due to a multitude of factors. Mostly It's kind of a pain in the ass to blog regularly. I only have so much time in the day to write, and I would rather spend that time writing stories.

I tried a Patreon page last year that turned into a flaming bag of dogshit. I had hoped I could replace the blog with the Patreon (because people can follow a Patreon page for free and read public posts), but I just couldn't get any interest. I'm no salesman. I'm not the best at social media. Frankly, the failed Patreon experience filled me with dread and self-loathing. It was a blatant reminder that promotion is the necessary evil, and I'm no goddamned good at it. Bummer. 

On the other hand, I published several books and a few short stories. I'm not going to go into that part here, because that would turn this into a year in review, and I was going to skip that, remember?

What I want to do in the future is start a YouTube channel for vintage horror book reviews, but I'm smart enough to know that isn't going to happen. I'm shit with technology and have no idea how to make a video clip look good. I hardly have the drive for all the set up. It takes so much time just figuring out how you're doing something wrong, that it always feels like a waste of time trying to do much beyond what I already know, and what I know is reading and writing. I can't even make promotional ads or bookmark designs on software everyone says is so easy to use.

So what I think I'll start doing is posting short reviews here on the blog starting with The Fungus by Harry Adam Knight. I'll see how it goes. Hopefully I manage some other fun stuff here, but who knows.

What I'm saying here is that I'm going to try and be more active on the blog. I had good numbers at one time. Whether the blog helped book sales, I really don't know. But I do know that it didn't hurt sales, so why not try to engage a bit more. Are people reading blogs? Everyone says no, but I'll give it another shot.

Hopefully 2020 will be as eventful as 2019. After all, I published a couple of books, short stories, a signed/limited novel with Thunderstorm Books, and moved across the country.

Oh, it's an election year.

We're doomed.

Just sit down with a book and forget about all that shit.

Come back for my review of The Fungus. See you then!

Exciting News!

I have a lot of exciting news to share, so let's dig right in. First off, my novel Stronger Than Hate was just released by Death's Head Press.

This is a book about Francine Mosely, retired high school teacher, who slips into a sinkhole in her backyard. Fearing that no one saw her and no one can hear her pleas for help, she is relieved when she sees her neighbor Gregory Palmer - ex-student who wasn't the most popular kid in school - has come to her rescue.

Only when Gregory comes back he doesn't bring the police or maybe the fire department to rescue poor Mrs. Mosley. He brings two of the most rotten, sadistic individuals she ever had the displeasure of teaching. She watched the deal from withing the pit, and now she is at the mercy of deviants.

Can Francine stick it out as they torment her? Will help arrive in time? Is she...Stronger Than Hate?

Available HERE in the US, and HERE in the UK, as well as Amazon outlets across the world.


Another big announcement is my novel Mojave Mud Caves that was published by Thunderstorm Books, signed and limited to 40 hardcovers and 60 paperbacks. I'm pleased to announce that the hardcover SOLD OUT in under twenty-four hours!

This is my first signed/limited edition and I am overwhelmed and humbled by the response and support. For those of you who snagged one of those hardcovers, you rock! They will be shipping soon. There are still some paperbacks left. You can get them directly from Thunderstorm Books HERE.


In other news, I've been invited to a few anthologies that are really cool. One is a King Diamond tribute anthology that will be published by Death's Head Press next year. I have a pretty solid idea that I've started working on. Should be a lot of fun. Another invite has me pretty damn excited as well, but I cannot say anything about it. Let's just say the writers attached to it are BIG. I also have two short stories coming out as a part of a series a certain publisher does that, again, I cannot reveal.

I'm hard at work reading submissions for my Blood Bound Books anthology Chew on This! Nothing new to report here, as much as I'd like to tell everyone about certain stories that have me very excited about this project. Then there are the stories that should be used as cautionary examples of what not to do while submitting to a publisher...

That's all for now. Remember to support your favorite writers (or even the OK ones) by leaving them reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, and, of course, by buying their books. I will do the same.

In my attempt as resurrecting this blog I am going to review some, if not all, of the books I read. Nothing too in depth, because I'm no critic. Just my thoughts. I hope to have some thoughts on Charles L. Grant's The Orchard up soon. Currently I'm reading The Nest by Gregory A. Douglas and The Store by Bentley Little (struggling a bit with this one...but I'll get into that when I share my thoughts). I'll be reading Out Behind the Barn by John Boden and Chad Lutzke soon.

Take care, horror fiends!

Stronger Than Hate Pre-Order SALE

My forthcoming novel from Death's Head Press, Stronger Than Hate, is available for pre-order at the super low price of .99 cents! The book has a release date of September 1st, and that's when the price will go up.

When retired high school teacher Francine Mosely finds herself in a dire predicament at the bottom of a sinkhole that opens up in her back yard, she's delighted to see that her neighbor, ex-student Gregory Palmer, happens to see her and reaches out to help, only when he returns he brings a couple of other ex-students whom Francine remembers vividly.

She watches the deal play out above. They look down upon her, sneering and taunting.

They never liked her.

In fact, they hate her.
 

Get your per-order of Stronger Than Hate HERE for just .99 cents, but only for a few more days!

Writing in Tandem

So I've been collaborating with Jack Bantry for some years now. It all started with a story I submitted to him for SplatterpunkZine. He liked the story but thought it needed something, asked if he could tinker with it and if I liked the outcome we could publish it as a collaboration. Now, I didn't know Bantry outside of a fellow writer who was putting out a cool DIY zine. Had that particular story been one of my recent ones I might have declined, but the story in question, it was called "In the House of Wicking" at the time, had been with me for a very long time, in many different forms. It started as a screenplay when I was in high school, then turned into a short story, and then was completely rewritten two or three times.

I liked the story idea, obviously, but I had to admit that something was indeed wrong. All my efforts with the damn thing were getting me nowhere. I told him to go for it, and what he sent back pretty much blew me away. Bantry had gone through and rearranged some things, added stuff here and there, and gave an emotional depth to a villainous character that was desperately needed. We were off to the races.

Since then we've sold a few short stories in such notable places as Dark Moon Digest and Year's Best Hardcore Horror Vol. 1. Most recently we've published our novella Ain't Worth a Shit with Sinister Grin Press, and Insatiable with Grand Mal Press. There's more to come, including a project with Death's Head Press.

Writing with another author is not something that comes easy for me in the sense that writing is such a solitary act. When Bantry and I started collaborating I was a staunch pantser. I don't think I could have written a book with an outliner, so it was a good pairing since Bantry too is an pantser. These days I write a bullet point outline to streamline my work and utilize my time better. We did this sort of thing toward the end of Insatiable because we found ourselves lagging a bit. I would be interested in collaborating with another author, but I've never reached out to anyone. Part of me fears that the experience might not be as enjoyable as working with Jack. We mesh well together. It takes some time to get a longer story finished, but I appreciate that we don't clash and have a mutual understanding of our process.

 The hard part about collaborating is that I become immersed in other projects when the collaborative story comes back to me, and I sometimes struggle to get back into it. That can be a challenge, especially when we get well into the story. It's not like I'm going to go back and reread the entire thing each time I'm up and need to get a chapter down. The good thing is that I can usually go back a couple of chapters and become reignited. It's a very different process from writing my own story, but ultimately rewarding, particularly when the book comes out. So, now that we have two novellas out and the reviews have been good, I hope you, whoever you are, give our work a chance. And if you do, please consider leaving a review.

I'm BACK!!!!

I've been gone for a while and now I'm back. No, I haven't been away from the writing community, but I did take quite a break from this blog. It's been months. Mostly I stepped away because I started a Patreon page. I quickly realized that Patreon is not for me. I don't have the time or know-how to promote a Patreon page and frankly there was zero interest. No big deal, really. Quite honestly with all of the writing projects I have going on right now I would have struggled to keep up with the work load.

So what have I been up to? A lot. I have a lot of announcements coming up. What can I talk about? This:

I sold a book to up-and-coming publisher Death's Head Press. What happens when sadistic punks see their former school teacher slip into a sinkhole? Find out in STRONGER THAN HATE. Unleashing 2019!

I also sold a short story to Death's Head called "Little Black Book Turns Red" that will be included in their Dig Two Graves Vol. 1 anthology. And there's something else in the works with DHP that hasn't been announced just yet.

What else? Well, I recently signed a contract for a project that I am super exited about. I'm not at liberty to make an announcement, but things are flowing smoothly. It's tough not even giving a hint, but my lips are sealed ... in fact I'm contractually bound to silence until my publisher gives me the go-ahead. Okay, my publisher has given me the go-ahead, but you're going to have to wait to hear that announcement on my forthcoming interview this Monday on Necrocasticon.

Oh, I have a new book out co-authored with Jack Bantry. It's called Ain't Worth a Shit, published by Sinister Grin Press.

Issy has become used to her new life in the UK, away from poverty in her native land. New beginnings weren’t without struggle, and sometimes the past comes back when you least expect it.

Mark dealt a little weed on the side, just enough to get him a few bucks and provide some for personal use. No big deal. Not until he makes a little mistake. Sometimes even the smallest error can turn into a dire situation.

There’s another world under the veneer of city streets in London’s Leicester Square, streets people walk every day without suspicion. Issy and Matt find out about this world in the worst ways imaginable, and they must fight for their lives to get out.
In this underworld, people Ain’t Worth A Shit!

 "Ain’t Worth a Shit is fast-paced, compelling, and entertaining on a sick horror fan level. It is a gruesome and disturbing story full of suspense and action." -- Bibliophilia Templum

Read the full Bibliophilia Templum review HERE. Purchase the book here: US paperback, US Kindle. UK paperback. UK Kindle.

That's all for now. I am going to attempt a weekly blog post, but who knows. I've never been very good about keeping up with this blog. People say blogs are dead. Let's prove them wring.

Send . . . More . . . BOOKS!

I've recently read my way through an interesting variety of books from non-fiction to sci-fi to horror to, well, more horror. Here are some quick little mini-reviews of each.

Blister by Jeff Strand

This is a fantastic read. A cartoonist takes a break after pulling a prank on some asshole kid. He goes out to his agent's lake house to cool off and learns of a local town secret called Blister. I won't say anymore about the plot. You don't need to know more. Just go into this story blind and enjoy the hell out of it. Strand gives a gut punch of a, well, a love story of sorts that examines the way people see each other and how terribly bad things can go when you're an outsider in a tightly knit community. Everything is all fun and games until someone finds a reason to hate you. Great little novella. Highly recommended.

Stranglehold by Jack Ketchum

Wow. What a gut punch. I've read most of Ketchum's novels and novellas and this one is right up there with The Girl Next Door and Red as far as the emotional distress factor is concerned. I listened to the audiobook and I wonder had I been reading the paperback if I would have put it down because of how poignant the material is. This is a story that follows a woman and man who eventually become married and have a child. The child begins to show some very startling behaviors and soon his parents divorce when his father becomes abusive. It only gets worse from there (not the book, but the circumstances in which this broken family finds themselves), and there were moments I cried, moments I wanted to stop listening, but I forged ahead. In the end I was emotionally exhausted. I don't do trigger warnings often, but I would warn anyone with young children to tread these waters with care. In the words of Tommy Chong: "It kinda grabs you by the boo-boo..."

The Iceman: Confession of a Mafia Contract Killer by Philip Carlo

I hadn't heard of this guy until picking up this book. Wow. Not just a contract killer, but a straight out serial killer. To know that people like Richard Kuklinski walk the earth is truly terrifying. This one is prime reading for true crime and mafia fans alike. Gives a whole different perspective to mob life than a book like Wise Guy does. Kuklinski didn't just kill for money, he killed because he liked it. That's some scary shit. Also interesting is the guy's background. Makes you wonder whether killers are born or made that way.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick

I'm not a fan of Blade Runner. I've watched the entire movie once and fallen asleep watching it maybe another two times. It's dreadfully boring. I was apprehensive going into this book, but it has such a stellar reputation that I figured it was a good jumping off point with PKD's work. Also, I'm not a big sci-fi fan, so I went in blind (outside of watching the adaptation years ago). I tend to prefer sci-fi in the shorter form from authors like Asimov, Bradbury, Matheson, and Ellison. Recently I saw a poster online for Blade Runner and it said: inspired by the Philip K. Dick story Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Inspired? Yeah, sounds about right. The source material was way better than the movie, though I feel like I need to give the movie another shot just to see if it makes more sense to me now. It was a weird book, no doubt, but ultimately enjoyable. Perhaps a bit too short. It just kind of ended and I thought there was so much more to explore. In a way it felt like the plot wasn't fully developed, but maybe I'm just dense. Who knows.

Slugs by Shaun Hutson

This one was fun for about a hundred and fifty pages, then it became tedious. In my experience, these novels about masses of animals or insects taking over a town would work better in novella form. I felt the exact same way about James Herbert's Rats (which I didn't think was a very good novel to begin with). This was my first Shaun Hutson read and I enjoyed his pulpy style quite a lot. I am interested in reading something like Spawn or Heathen, but good luck to me in finding one of those vintage paperbacks. I mean, I could buy one of the newer editions, but I just love the feel of a good ol' mass market paperback, and you can't beat the cheesy artwork. I may have to cave though. Spawn sounds like a hell of a ride.

That's all for now. I hope you found something of interest in these little reviews. Maybe one of these is on your bookshelf right now. If not, most of them are available at your favorite online retailer. Grab one, sit back, and read a book.

Up next will be books such as Nursery Tale by T. M. Wright, Technicolor Terrorists by Andre Duza, The Auctioneer by Joan Samson (I feel like I've been reading this one for a while now!), and others.

Until next time...

Thoughts on Several Books . . . I Can't Keep Up

So my idea was to post my thoughts on each and every book I read in to 2018, sort of like little reviews. I figured it would be a good exercise since I've grown to despise writing reviews. Turns out I also dislike updating my blog. I know, I know, blogging is dead. People don't read them anymore. Well, I know that's bullshit because I see the numbers. That's why I still post here, albeit infrequently.

That all being said, I have read quite a few books since Stirring the Sheets by Chad Lutzke (awesome little novella--seek it out and read it), and I've decided to put them all into this one post with a quick paragraph of my thoughts on each one.

Savage by Richard Laymon

Great book. Very unlike anything else I have read by Laymon, and I've read a lot of his books. Still doesn't take over my top two favorite Laymon novels (In the Dark and Night in the Lonsesome October), but Savage is most certainly number three. A historical horror that follows Jack the Ripper from England to the American wild west, this story takes the usual twists and turns you expect from a Laymon novel and adds a rich story that I was genuinely moved by, at times feeling extreme sympathy for our hero, and even anger with some of his motivations. Those are the kind of responses I cherish from a novel. If you find Laymon to be to exploitative or maybe just too crazy, give this one a shot. It's well worth it.

The Amulet by Michael McDowell

This is my second McDowell outing. The first was his acclaimed The Elementals, which is one of my favorite novels. The Amulet, however, falls far from the bar I've set for McDowell. A great effort for a first novel, but nothing more than a weird slasher story where the slasher is an amulet that causes people to murder everyone around them when in possession of the piece of jewelry. Pretty much that simple. As I read I kept hoping for some amazing twist that would pay off, but nope. The story goes right where you think it will. I heard that it was originally a screenplay that he turned into a novel, and it reads that way. A slasher film with a twist on the trope, but no pay off. I think it would have made a good movie in the early eighties, considering that the most interesting part of the story aside form our protagonist's growing insecurities concerning her war-damaged husband wrapped from head to tow in bandages and her vile mother-in-law were the various ways people died.

Panacea by F. Paul Wilson

Holy shit this was a good book. Wow. Not my typical fare, the story starts out like a medical thriller and turns into something so much more. Wilson is a master storyteller, this we know, but when I read something like this I'm left in awe, wondering why the hell I even try. The plot is incredibly weaved like a gorgeous tapestry full of hints and clues as to where you're going, but when everything is unfolded, you're still taken by surprise. Books such as this one separate the bestsellers from the midlisters. If I could write something 1/10 this good I would be a happy man.

Life by Kieth Richards

I like the Stones, but I'm no super fan (I'm a Beatles guy). I love rock/metal autobiographies, so I thought I would give this one a shot. Kieth Richards, if nothing, is passionate about music. That was one thing that made the book lag in the beginning. He spends a lot of time talking about the music that influenced him. Too much time. That aside, it's a good rock bio. He doesn't talk much shit and seems like a fairly decent chap, though he most certainly has an anger problem. The legend of Kieth Richards is bigger than the man himself, which is kind of interesting. certainly a great read for Stones fans, though I would have rather read one of those rock bios written from the perspectives of all the members of the band, like the Aerosmith bio Walk This Way or Motley Crue's The Dirt.

Whoopsy Daisy by David Allen Coe

Stumbled upon this on YouTube and listened to it at work one day. Not a fan of Coe aside from the album he did with the Pantera guys Rebel Meets Rebel (awesome record!). Written in '97 just after his wife of 14 years left him, this is kind of a depressing book from a guy who is in a lot of emotional pain. He talks about being famous and what it really means. he breaks down touring and what he actually earns, and discusses some of the mistakes he's made in life. Most of all, he breaks down why he thinks his wife left him. Here's a man haunted by his past. if you are a fan of David Allen Coe or, like me, just like autobiographies, give it a read. I would be interested in one of his previous books that's a more proper autobiography. Apparently he's written quite a few.

Lowland Riders by Chet Williamson

 I made it very close to the end but completely lost interest. A really cool Death Wish premise about a guy whose family is murdered by street thugs who in turn kills one of the murderers and then lives in the subway system fearing persecution for his crime. I wanted to like this novel, but I struggled with it because I stopped caring. It's like two separate stories that aren't getting along together, almost as if the supernatural elements were just thrown in. I hate giving up on a book within fifty pages of the end, but I had to move on to something else. I might go back in a few weeks and finish it...and I might not.

Well, that's it for now. I feel like I'm missing something. I started a few books that I had to put down, so maybe that's it. Anyway, I'm reading Slugs by Shaun Hutson, I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison, The Ice Man: Confession of a Mafia Contract Killer by Philip Carlo, and The Auctioneer by Joan Samson. I like this method of short reviews of each book in one post. I think I'll be doing this from now on.

Happy reading, folks!

Are You Obsessed?

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