. . . you could never*say : No, please, no — my book would make a terrible movie. Actually, I never thought about if this book would outlive me or not. Well, I mean, that book’s obviously better than mine. That’s the only reason it’s on the best seller list. Of course I would only […]
[ the title and the whole piece here may not make much sense–it may not anyway–without cueing into TheValve.org, which, it looks like, may have the original Marcus article in PDF ] Just what is experimental fiction, then? The easiest definition for experimental or innovative or non-conventional fiction is fiction that, both at armslength and
So a while back a friend i was borrowing DVDs from asked what horror he might need to have a somewhat complete collection. I told him I’d pen him a list sooner or later. Only just now remembering this. And, yeah, two disclaimers before I even start here: 1) I’m surely forgetting as many as
The best place to hide from an axe-weilding maniac is with your back pressed up against a wooden door you’re pretty sure is both solid and impenetrable. This is because that maniac who’s after you, his first strike with the axe will nearly always be from two to six inches from the left side of
Been trying to figure out what scenes/images from horror movies have become so indelibly imprinted on pop-culture that even people who don’t watch horror kind of have to know them, or at least of them. Which is to say I can’t just pick the coolest or best horror clips–the ones that imprinted me once upon
First, as this is just all about the end of THE DESCENT, then, yep, it’s just chock full of spoilers. So stop here if: you’ve not seen it you’re going to see it and you don’t like to know how a thing’s going to end Not meaning to say THE DESCENT has a gimmick-ending or
And I think I can say ‘cineplex’ there — none of these are really indie, or at least didn’t end up that way. And, before I even list them, the caveats: I’ve yet to catch BORAT or PAN’S LABYRINTH or APOCALYPTO or INLAND EMPIRE or CHILDREN OF MEN or THE FOUNTAIN or the BLACK CHRISTMAS
I first read Pynchon when I was twenty-two, I think, between a B.A. and an M.A. The only reason I read him, too, was because I’d hit up a professor I trusted for a list of books I’d need to have read if I didn’t want to get laughed out of grad school. She of
An Amazon short, “Gabriel.” Would say something about it here, but I think it’s all allready1 there. Only thing I didn’t say to/for them, I guess, was that, when I read their guidelines and saw that there was a 10,000 word cap, I of course scoured my story directories for something just a touch over
as always, spoilers abound.1 Man, mix even parts Adaptation and The Wonder Boys, let Will Ferrell shake it, and you’ve got something a lot like Stranger than Fiction. And of course, as all movies about writers of whatever kind have to end, Stranger than Fiction pulls the same trick those two do. Or, that Get
I don’t have nearly enough time to devote to this now — I’m in the early stages of a study that hopes to finally conclude whether the Bulletboy’s old “Smooth Up In Ya’” song1 (1989) really had hidden sexual overtones or not (next up: Warrant’s “Cherry Pie”) — but I feel I’ve got to say
Looks like, in pre-celebration for TURISTAS1, Demon Theory pulled two reviews this week: & [ click em to hit the rvws ] Cool places each, though the reviews are kind of opposites of each other. Anyway, it’s none other than Mike Bracken on the Toxic Universe one. Which, I mean — for my first novel,
hey, way down in that Halloweenie post I wrapped up by lamenting that there were no pics leftover of my shirt. Turns out it was a lie. There’s this one (click it to enlarge): The farthest-back person in the room’s my friend William J Cobb, and the frontmost is Jay McInerney. I’m in the middle
and his freezer’s now spilling over with elk. which is to say dancing days are here again, all that. and, because all this can’t seem to organize itself any other way, a list: That 32 Poems (Fall/Winter 4.2) with my story “Lunch” is out and about now. Just had “The Sadness of Two People Meeting
Best line, by far: Samuel Jackson’s SNAKES ON A PLANE one, here Best monster kill: that last one in FEAST Best justice: in the bathroom stall at the end of HOSTEL Best subtitle: “[Zombies Panting],” from SLiTHER Best remake: THE HILLS HAVE EYES Best prequel to a remake: TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE BEGINNING Best tanning
Bleak. Unremitting. Is to the road trip book what THE HILLS HAVE EYES was to the family vacation movie. And as far as post-apocalyptic stuff goes, Cormac McCarthy’s THE ROAD makes you see what a happy fantasy A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ was, how tame DR. BLOODMONEY was. That that road in THE PARABLE OF THE
everyone dreams the dream but we are it It’s like a word problem: If two ribbons, one gold one green, approach each other at a rate of eight pages at a time in a three hundred and sixty page book, will they ever meet? Because of course one-eighty isn’t a multiple of eight — you’re
Showed up at the wrong bookstore Halloween night to do a DEMON THEORY signing — kind of awkward when you’re wearing a Jason mask, carrying a big fake knife — but finally found the right one, had a blast (notice all the LISEY’S STORYs behind me there, yeah?). Rented FEAST that night as well, though
Man, if everybody doesn’t have a list, right? I’d guess, if I took the time to look, somebody’s already got one like this, I mean: things they’re tired enough of in horror to make a public plea that those things stop, lest the whole genre cave in or something. Or, really, those things we get
For a long time now I’ve gone to bed early For a long time now I’ve been writing “title shot” in the back of every book I read, along with a/the page number. Most, anyway. All it means is that this (page) is the first time the title of the book appears in the book
Just a couple of quick links: Wooden Spoon’s posted a cool Demon Theory review In anticipation & celebration of Halloween, that fifth page of the Demon Theory quiz-thing‘s been very updated I just last night rung that 100-page bell on the novel I started a few days ago, which has a title still probably too
Just thinking about what I said in that last post, about how I don’t do reviews because I’m pretty sure I’d set my standards impossibly high, just so I could shoot down every book in my path. That may be a little too broad a statement, though — I don’t mean to suggest that all
Well, I mean, yeah, because he’s got titles like THE LUST LIZARD OF MELANCHOLY COVE and PRACTICAL DEMONKEEPING. These are what originally got me peeling his books up from the shelves back whenever ago. Years already, I guess. Too, though, I’ve yet to read a CMoore book that hasn’t made me smile, and then impressed
JUKED #4 (print) is out. Just showed up in my mailbox today. Very pretty. In there with a couple of people I know, even: Alan Rossi and Patrick Whitfill. The story is that “Zombie Sharks with Metal Teeth”-one. A story about a man and his mouse. Which, that’s not figurative language there, though I guess
Editor Y: In today’s trend-oriented publishing climate, you need to either be the celebrity-of-the-moment or you need to have a bulletproof plan to plug into what’s hot, what’s guaranteed, what there’s already an audience for. And, sir/madam/etc., that you don’t already know my name from the tabloids should suggest that, while not infamous for killing
