A while back I was part of the cattle call for what became this article, and just found myself looking this email up as a student was coming to my office to talk about ghosts. So I figured it’d be good if I could see again what I think about them (I know nothing until […]
Finished CJ Box’s very Hillerman-ey Back of Beyond. Like everything else of his so far, I really dug it, though this one’s a lot more straight-ahead thriller than mystery, which is where he usually writes. I’d say it’s a (Crais) Hostage, just rural instead of urban. Just as well-paced, though, and very well-written this time, too.
remember in It’s Alive when that monster baby’s born and just chews his way through the delivery room? or when Victor von shouts to the heavens that It’s alive! It’s alive! thinking something like that for this. been waiting a long time for Zombie Bake-Off to become the kind of real people can see on
Back in 2005 or so, I was under contract to write a sequel to All the Beautiful Sinners for Rugged Land — they’re gone now, but they were hot for a while, and produced some gorgeous books, and, as far as I know, did the first ever serious book trailer, too (For Henry’s List of
Here’s a bit of writing you don’t see much of anymore: Stonehill was not in a quarrelsome mood that morning, indeed he was not snorting or blowing at all but rather in a sad, baffled state like that of some elderly lunatics I have known. Let me say quickly that the man was not crazy.
It’s probably just me, but I had the hardest time getting into Amelia Beamer’s The Loving Dead. As for why I picked it up in the first place? Aside from that it was definitely ‘zombie?’ AT WHC2011, John Skipp (on an excellent zombie panel) said it was the only zombie fiction he’d read recently that
Let the Right One In was a vampire novel we hadn’t seen before, almost like it was trying to be an antidote to things going on in the genre. Not so much a return to form, but a reboot. And then Handling the Undead gave us a completely different kind of zombie, one which is
Just a rough list of the e-book issues I can think of. And, I should say up top here that I’m pretty much addicted to my Kindle. So this isn’t an attack on e-books (which — a lot of of those are taking the form of nostalgia, right? like when we went from cassettes to CDs?).
this one is just as strong as THE SAD TALE OF THE BROTHERS GROSSBART. best thing I’ve read so far this summer, by far, and I kind of doubt anything else is going to live up to it. and, I’ve had this copy Jesse gave me for I don’t know how long long — too
I don’t care who you are, you only get a couple of drop-dead gorgeous stories, no matter how long you write. A couple, maybe three, that just sing, that last, that are permanent, that are indelible. Even Flannery O’Connor, even Tobias Wolff, even Stephen King. The rest can be beautiful and chiseled and have impact,
My review’s up over at, you guessed it, The Cult. And it’s not really a review, either. Jumping off point? Also, I need a cool header like this, below; I’d silkscreen it on a t-shirt, wear it around. You maybe think I’m lying here, too.
If only I had a cooler voice, but still, the story’s excellent: Paul Tremblay’s “We Will Never Live in the Castle,” as read by yours sometimes truly. From his new In the Mean Time collection, which I much recommend.
Last summer — months after everybody else then as well — I finally hit LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, and was so completely impressed. To say it better: I was so impressed that the movie adaptation seemed pale to me, incomplete, boring. Which isn’t at all to say it wasn’t a wonderful film (I dig
Or, “What I did with my yesterday,” yeah. Book: PARKER: THE HUNTER. Pretty fun; very straightforward, and cool art. Though, the night before I was up until two or three in the morning, unable to look away from the second volume of SCALPED, “Casino Boogie.” I’ve always thought that SANDMAN or Y THE LAST MAN
not based on a true story So I read more fiction than non-fiction. It’s a moral failing, I know: I prefer the make-believe. Too, though, I mean I write fiction. Makes sense to read it, yeah? Where else am I going to learn technique, cue into little narrative shuffles this or that writer pulled off,
In Five Words or Less: Boring title, good movie. In More than Five Words, with / without spoilers: In 1998, Sam Raimi adapted Scott Smith’s debut sensation A Simple Plan (1993) for us, and, though a lot of the narrator’s nuances were lost in the compression, still, Smith had written a strong enough dramatic spine
Accidentally cribbed a little list down last night, of books I’d somehow, embarassingly, to my own detriment, not got around to reading in 2008. No excuses, really. I mean, as usual, I read just a whole tower of novels, but I couldn’t even start to say how many or what they were. Had never considered
Doing a reading today, a Dead Authors thing, where we all take turns reading stuff from writers who died this year. I’ve got David Foster Wallace, and’ll of course be doing the aloud thing to some Infinite Jest. Too, it was cool: I wrote a friend, asked him what I should read, and one of
I’d guess we’ve all got holes in our reading. Which I’m likely saying just to make myself feel better, yeah. Anyway, Faulkner, say. I’ve read maybe five of his novels? But I don’t feel bad about that either, because I was pretty bored about two novels in. And Hemingway, man. Only made it through two
The only connection there being that I’m writing about both of them now: hit RANT the other day, and, like SNUFF, I really dug it. I’m liking the direction he’s going lately. Anyway, I guess that’s the complete text of my review there, ‘I dug it,’ but, specifically, and all spoilerly, so watch out, he
If only I could. But this would definitely be in there, right along with the TOTALL RECALL/2001 saga: “The ‘Road to Perdition’ novelization was a nightmare, frankly,” Collins says. “I went after it for obvious reasons — I didn’t want a ‘Perdition’ novel written by someone else out there. I proceeded to write the best
Well, ‘new,’ I don’t know — I’m just seeing them anyway. And one I’ve been waiting for, I don’t know, feels like ever, but a few months anyway:
Really, just two passages I’ve stumbled onto these last couple of days. The first is from Eric Miles Williamson, a guy I really respect because he can seriously write. On the editorial board of some mystery-press a couple of years ago, I read a book of his in manuscript which I still think of just
Man, except for re-hitting ReAnimator the other day — and maybe even including it — Behind the Mask: the Rise of Leslie Vernon is far and away the best horror I’ve seen all year. Best I’ve seen since Feast, really.* And Feast is that holy kind of good for me. The only time I plan
