Design Trends I Hate - Slide Shows

Let me put on my curmudgeon's cap and jersey for a moment, and discuss a web design and content trend I really hate. That's slide shows. They're ubiquitous it seems, and often they have information that sounds interesting. "10 Facts About Happiness," "15 Underrated Horror Films," "Best Celebrity Cellulite Solutions."

It's getting to that information that's the challenge. You can get Number 15, but moving to Number 14 is another matter, especially with the variety of devices we have to access the web.

If you're viewing the web in, oh, a browser, slide shows become time consuming.

The #$%)&*_&^%$#$%^%ing *&+#@!%^ *&^%$ button is never located conveniently to the copy. It's usually somewhere up near the address bar, and the text is somewhere down below an image.

For me it invariably means scrolling down to read the content then back up to find the button to advance. Then it's scroll down again to read.

When I was talking about this on Twitter, Robin Ashe added a good observation. There's often an ad link in the mix that looks like the button you ought to click.

Gets the website a click through and you even more delay in reading and moving on.

Add to that the fact that they're not really slide shows a lot of the time, just separate web pages THAT HAVE TO LOAD.

I know why this is all like it is. I know it's a clever scheme, nay, a conspiracy for click throughs, but it's annoying as hell.

I think I'm going to declare a moratorium on browsing web slideshows. I won't need facts on happiness then. I'll just be happy not clicking and scrolling so often.

Storage Wars Meets Area 51 - A Kickstarter

Wes Locher was an up and coming comics writer before he took a class from me, but I mention that he's a past student in the interest of full disclosure.

I wanted to share news of his Kickstarter project regardless. Yeah, he's a former student, but it also looks cool.

It's comedy sci-fi hinging on an interesting and humorous high concept. Here's the word on his Unit 44:

Oh, and contributors can earn cool rewards. 

Horror Trailer: The Caves - Killer Vikings Awake

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Got a kind note from Jack Delaney, the director of a new horror feature film called The Caves. Be warned, the trailer's a bit bloody, but it looks interesting.

Vikings awake in the present day, and they're dangerous.

The Blackhouse by Peter May - An Immersion in Character and Culture

 Once in a while you pick up a book and find it far exceeds expectations. I was intrigued reading the jacket flap of Peter May's The Blackhouse. It summarized the story of a Scotland detective called back to his childhood home in The Hebrides to investigate a murder similar to a case he's recently dealt with in Edinburgh. It sounded like an engaging procedural.

I didn't get from that how rich in character and setting the tale would be.

The Blackhouse scrutinizes the life of Fin Macleod, both in the present as he proceeds through his investigation, and in the past, through first-person remembrance.

Fin has known tragedy. He's almost plagued by tragedy. He lost his parents at a young age. He's just lost a son and seen his marriage unravel in the aftermath. He's also been party to a good deal of misery either dealt out by harsh circumstances of island life or from nature itself.

The case he's called on to investigate opens old wounds and revisits jagged relationships, many swirling around the victim, Angel Macritchie, a bully as a boy and as a man.

Macleod's past is inextricably linked to the murder. Those detailed relationships and past regrets channel him toward answers, shocks and heightened regrets.

Many are linked to the island's annual guga hunt, an almost ritualistic culling of gannets on a rock island. May, who lived in the Hebrides while film a television series there, offers a fascinating look into life and culture and the role of the hunt to island life.

The components converge in a thrilling and tortured climax in which Fin confronts present, past, himself, and, of course, the killer.

It's a well plotted mystery, a study of a man and a voyage to a unique and intriguing place. It reminds me a bit in its combinations of Jane Campion's New Zealand in Top of the Lake.

It's well worth the time to turn the pages. Has Fin been party to almost too much tragedy and has he seen too much first hand? Perhaps one red herring's a bit of a stretch, but it generally fits, and the whole is a solid, intricate work.

Happily, though it took the book a while to find a home, it's the first in a trilogy, that I hope to continue reading soon.

Peter May discusses the road to publication for The Blackhouse:

Three Graves Full - A Crime Drama

In this debut novel, Jamie Mason introduces a compelling group of characters then puts them through sometimes comic, sometimes tragic and sometimes suspenseful paces.

I suppose the central conceit requires a little buy-in from the reader, but it's not terribly hard with Mason's smooth narrative touch.

Jason Getty has killed a man and buried him in his yard. 

After a period of fretting about that circumstance, he hires a crew for lawn maintenance lest an overgrown homestead draw undue attention.

In the midst of their cleanup, they stumble on an unmarked grave.  No wait, two unmarked graves. Neither is occupied by the guy Getty buried.

It seems a pair of bodies were planted on the property before he moved in and sunk another.

Just accept it.

From there, the story unfolds in a nicely paced and quirky manner as Getty encounters a pair of decent and conscientious local cops who solve the murders in short order but find Jason acts a little suspicious.

CSI determines another death might have transpired in Jason's house, which makes them curious  and means Jason's going to need to move his former friend Harris to a new location.

Jason's the most compelling character in the cast, and the extended flashback in which we learn the circumstances of the killing he committed is engrossing. It builds empathy for his milquetoast spirit. He's a widower after all, and good intentions  entangled him with a biker and burglary ring leader, who doesn't like to be called Harris, who drove Jason first to despair then dire deeds.

When Jason starts to unearth his victim for transport prior to the police bringing in cadavar dogs, things really get complicated as the suspect for the other killings, the fiance of one of the victims and others converge on Getty's house.

Jason's faced with trying to protect himself, help one of the good cops and somehow makeing an ally of a woman he's instinctively brained with a shovel.

I think it's safe to say you haven't seen this all before. Mason really delivers a fresh voice and a fresh perspective to the crime novel.

Three Graves Full is a fast and exciting excursion, and you'll probably be surprised at how things turn out.

RIP Richard Matheson

I was sad to hear today of the passing of another of the favorite authors of my youth. Richard Matheson has gone. 

Before I could read,  The Incredible Shrinking Man aired on local television. I was under my grandmother's care on school day afternoons.

God bless my grandmama. She didn't see any harm in letting me watch a story of a man showered with a strange substance that made him smaller and smaller, until he was menaced by his house cat and a tarantula.

It was all fascinating stuff. Imagination rich and wonderful.

It was just the first of many hours with Matheson's work. I read his short stories in horror collections starting when I was 10 or eleven, but no one who's been alert the past 50 years or so has escaped Matheson.

 From Poe adaptations to Twilight Zone to Somewhere in Time, his mark is on our consciousness.

Sad to see him go.

Here's a post from a few of years ago about my fond reading of his collection Shock Waves. 

What's on the iPod - Miami Purity - Feminine Noir

I'm not sure how I missed Vicki Hendricks' dark, noirish Miami Purity (1995), often dubbed a feminine The Postman Always Rings twice, but I was happy to discover the audiobook recently. That's due to a mention in a Salon article about what to read after Gillian Flynn's brilliant  Gone Girl.

Miami is brilliant also, a steamy--in more ways than one--and grim crime excursion told by the protagonist, Sherri Parlay. She's a former stripper who's maintained a vestige of innocence in spite of her rough thirty-six years and a deceased husband. He's deceased because she clipped him with a boom box while he was being abusive.

After her husband's death and some suspicion about it by the cops, Sherri lands a job in a Miami cleaner  called Miami Purity. She's hired by the owner, Brenda Mahoney.

Before long she's discovered the owner's son, Payne,  and fallen deeply into lust for him before she learns Brenda doesn't really care for Payne having a love life.

Things spiral downward as Sherri pursues Payne anyway and catches his interest. Once she's fallen for him, she learns just how twisted his relationship with Brenda is. With the best of intentions, she smothers Brenda with a plastic bag.

Things tumble around after that like towels in a dryer as Sherri strives for a healthy relationship with Payne that, as astute readers know, just isn't going to happen.

The question is, of course, how are things going to fall apart and what's going to happen with Sherri who has an affection for drink and men?

To say more would spoil the fun of the second part of the tale, but it unwinds nicely with a fairly intricate plot and plenty of twists and surprises.

The audio version is nicely suspenseful, and it's well narrated by Linda Borg, who invests Sherri with just the right mixture of sultry and innocent.

It's profanity-laced and loaded with graphic sexual descriptions, so be warned, but it's a great, seedy crime excursion.

Extra
A blogtalk radio interview with Vicki Henricks

A Stranger in My Grave by Margaret Millar - Domestic Thrills and Murder

I read most of the Ross MacDonald Lew Archer novels when I was a kid, and in the back of the Bantam editions the "About the Author" page noted MacDonald was "... Kenneth Millar in private life." Those sections also mentioned that  his wife, Margaret Millar, was also a mystery writer. I kept an eye peeled for her work as well, but in the book stores and news stands I frequented, nary a Margaret Millar title showed up. (I've mentioned before those days before the interwebs when you were at the mercy of paperback spinners and used book stores  to find books.)

Happily I ran across an edition of A Stranger in My Grave (1960) a couple of years back, and I was reminded of that when her name kept coming up in relation to Gillian Flynn's brilliant page turner Gone Girl. 

Grave certainly feels a little like a literary cousin of Gone Girl. It's a domestic thriller that revolves around an interesting quandary from Daisy Harker, a young wife, who in 1959 or so dreams of a tombstone with her name on it, and a death date four years earlier. Dec. 2, 1955.

Someone, Daisy reckons, must have done her psychic harm on that date:

"...No interpretation is necessary. It's all quite clear. On Dec. 2, 1955, something happened to me that was so terrible it caused my death. I was psychically murdered."

Her husband Jim would rather she leave that notion alone. So would her mother, who's supported by Jim's generosity and thus has a vested interest in the couple's domestic bliss.

Daisy's determined however, and when her deadbeat father, Stan Fielding, calls for help in paying off a bail bondsman, she sees an avenue to find answers. His bail bondsman, Steve Pinata, has detective skills as well.

He agrees to reconstruct that relevant Dec. 2, and it soon becomes clear Daisy's buried a few things deep in her memory. She recalls snow-capped mountains but not the reason she left the clinic where she worked that year, and something's up with Jim and his lawyer.

Her dad Stan Fielding is up to something as well, hitching back into town to look into the world of a waitress named Juanita. She's volatile and may be connected to the man really buried in the grave Daisy dreamed about.

Swirling pieces converge and begin to make more and more sense as the pages turn.

A Stranger In My Grave is not so much a novel of detection as a tale of mystery and murder that allows events to unfold once the trigger of memory is pulled.

On the  journey, Daisy moves outside the protective parameters of Jim and her mother who have controlling agendas. The truths are twisted and startling as they are revealed.

I suppose the memory loss is a conceit that the reader is expected to accept a little too easily, and there are a few other abrupt emotional developments for characters, but ultimately Stranger offers a compelling study of family, deception, dark deeds and a domestic era that's at times appalling yet also familiar.

What's on the iPad? - Haunting Melissa

I think I maximized my viewing experience of the new app-based serial Haunting Melissa last night. I put in my ear plugs as I lay me down to sleep and I powered up the first installment. The lights were out, all else was quiet, and I was immersed.

The set up is generally familiar. We see things unfold through hand-held cameras and web chats.
The Melissa of the title is staying alone in a big, old house. There's a locked room, not sure what's in there. Voices and other strangeness abound, and Melissa and her friend begin to investigate. What could go wrong?

In spite of the familiarity, watched in total darkness, there were some eerie chills. I'm intrigued and waiting for installment two. That can be earned by a Facebook share, though I suppose future installments will come at a price. You wanna find out what happens, you must pay.

The project comes from New Edelstein, a producer on the The Ring and The Ring 2 and other projects, and it's well done. I think I will stick with it for a while.

I hope Part 2 arrives quickly. I want to see what happens next.

The 39 Steps as Improv

Improv techniques superimposed over the plot of John Buchan's 1915 spy novel made for great fun in the performance of The 39 Steps that Christine and I attended yesterday as part of the Orlando Fringe Festival. 

The trailer above gives as good a taste of what's in store as I could summarize, and it makes for an interesting blend of comedy and spy intrigue. 

Even before the show begins, performers in character collect random suggestions from the audience by way of surveys, secret messages dropped to "the man in the trench coat" and ideas written on chalk slates, the way a spy might scrawl a surreptitious detail. 

Those suggestions help direct the plot, which updates Buchan's pre-World War I story to the era of the Cuban missile crisis. Richard Hannay (or Rachel if needed) can be played by any one of the improve performers, based on a vote from the audience. 

It's all funny to be sure, but the core spy story and chase elements from the novel are  woven through the tale, and it all builds to Hannay in a desperate situation. 

I found it fresh and fun, and it was a good look at how genre gems can be given fresh life. 

The concept stems from Ryan Price of Orlando's Invisible Frisbee, and it's under the direction of Rebekah Lane. Check out the slide show of the production and more on their website. 

Ticket info if you're in Orlando.

It's Alive - by Loren D. Estleman

Somehow I missed the Valentino series from Loren D. Estleman until browsing the other day and hitting on the latest book, Alive!

Happy to be aboard.

Valentino is a film archivist for UCLA, and he becomes embroiled in murder mysteries that swirl around lost films. We're talking things like Eric Von Stronheim's Greed or, happily, the lost screen test of Bela Lugosi as the Frankenstein monster in Alive!

The screen test is real and really lost, cleared away to make storage space in a time before its importance and value were recognized at Universal Studios. But Estleman imagines a world where the footage still exists, two reels shot with Lugosi hot off the success of 1931's Dracula and targeted for a role in the next big Universal monster movie. Of course the role went to Boris Karloff, but collectors and film fans would love to see what might have been, or what went wrong.

Estleman offers up an interesting blend of film history and fiction as Valentino races to find the lost footage after he realizes it's at the core of an old friend's murder.

His pal, a washed up star with addiction issues,  has come upon the footage, but criminal elements are involved. There's also a collector who's an homage to the late great punster and editor Forrest Ackerman of Famous Monsters of Filmland.

Estleman's imagined a rich world of supporting characters for Valentino including an intern who's into Steampunk and a department secretary from hell plus a fun pair of San Diego detectives. They're fun for the reader, not so fun for Valentino. The bad cop of the duo is on bad cop overdrive.

There's a nice and fairly twisty mystery plot woven through the tale, and tension builds as Valentino strives to solve the case and keep the film footage from decaying in a police evidence room.

The tale's also a fabulous look into film preservation with even a few contemplations on Steampunk's importance. Van Helsing qualifies, and Valentino's intern and friends watch with the sound turned down for the enjoyment of the production design.

All in all, it's nice mystery read and great book to pick up if you're an aficionado of Universal Horrors.

Must check out the other tales in the series as well including a collection of short stories. 

Watch Instantly Watch: Messages Deleted

It's not quite The Cabin in the Woods or Scream, but I recently ran across an interesting 2009 thriller with meta touches on Netflix.

Messages Deleted is from the pen of Larry Cohen, screenwriter for a host of memorable thrillers and B-movies including Q, Phone Booth, It's Alive and Captivity. 

Messages stars Matthew Lillard, Shaggy in the Scooby Doo films and now pretty much the voice of Shaggy in Scooby animated films. He's Joel Brandt, a screenwriting instructor and struggling screenwriter.

Things start to go awry when he discovers a message on his home answering machine from a guy with a gun to his head.

Soon, Joel's embroiled in the investigation of a string of murders that mirror movie cliches.

Of course he becomes a suspect, and of course he has to begin to unravel a puzzle that seems to tie his past to an escalating series of murders.

It has a lot of elements we've seen before, but Lillard's always interesting, and he's helped along by Deborah Kara Unger as a detective on the case and Gina Holden as a student and ally.

The body count rises, Brandt grows frantic and with the help of his student, he realizes the events seem to be reflecting a screenplay written by a former student.

Death implements of variable sorts, movie coverage talk and other mayhem unfurl before the reveal.

It's not quite stupendous, but it's an interesting exercise especially if you're a bit of a film buff.

James Spader has a Blacklist

There aren't a lot of new dramas on NBC's fall lineup. While I'm reluctant to invest time in shows that might not last, I'm intrigued by The Blacklist. It's from Joe Carnahan who did The Grey and Smokin' Aces among other.

James Spader stars as a master criminal who has a list of really bad guys. He turns himself in to the FBI with an offer to help catch the evil doers.

He gets a Clarice Starling-like agent (Annet Mahendru) to work with, but it really appeals to me a little more than Hannibal has so far.

Here's hoping it has the legs for a good run,  the trailer looks pretty cool.

Songs to Play at My Funeral

Don't let the title bring concern. The last checkup was decent, and other than some mild allergy annoyance as April slides toward May, I'm feeling pretty good.

But trouble at my undergrad alma mater's had an interesting side effect, of late. It's caused me to at least have passing contact with some friends from way back. Some of 'em look old on Facebook, I'm not gonna lie.

Seems I blinked and thirty years have passed. Not sure how that happened. It brought the notion that I'd like to choose the songs that are played when I've done the Off the Mortal Coil Shuffle. Hopefully that's not for another 30 years or at least not until the fish oil stops working.

But whenever it occurs, I'm starting the playlist. Somebody out there see that this happens, hold Christine to it.

Doesn't have to be this version, but for the sheer irony of it, I think I need a rendition of Simple Gifts, the shaker hymn. My corporate communications day gig of twelve years was at a company that used the tune as its theme song. I've mulled requesting Lord of the Dance, a later song with the same tune, but I think in needs to be the original.




The great Warren Zevon died in 2003, same year my old man passed. I knew "Werewolves of London," but a buddy in my newspaper days prompted me to purchase a Zevon album, and I've stayed a fan forever. This tune from his farewell album would be a nice touch.




I was a fan of the British series Cracker when it aired in the US in the '90s. Christine and I watched on A&E. When Fitz, the lead character, lost his mother, they played Loch Lomond at her funeral. I always liked that and found a version when I was working at the library.

In the show,  they had a choir boy singing it, but I'd settle for the version from Runrig. My roots, on both sides of my family, are in the British Isles, so it's appropriate. I'll probably come up with a few more, but that's a start.

Added Aug. 17, 2020

 

"Don't muffle your drums and play your fifes merrily,
 Play a quick march as you carry me along, 
And fire your bright muskets all over my coffin, 
Saying: There goes an unfortunate lad to his home."
                                 -- The Unfortunate Rake
                                    Folk ballad

The Reading Lessons Cover Reveal

Carole Lanham, who once featured me in her Apron Hall of Fame, asked me to share in the joy of the cover reveal on her new book The Reading Lessons. (View The Making of The Apron Pic post)

It's really beautifully done artwork as you can see above.

Sounds like a really interesting Southern novel. Here's the synopsis from the publisher, Immortal Ink,  and you can view the trailer below:

Mississippi 1920: Nine year old servant, Hadley Crump, finds himself drawn into a secret world when he is invited to join wealthy Lucinda Browning’s dirty book club. No one suspects that the bi-racial son of the cook is anything more to Lucinda than a charitable obligation, but behind closed doors, O! she doth teach the torches to burn bright. What begins as a breathless investigation into the more juicy parts of literature quickly becomes a consuming and life-long habit for two people who would not otherwise be left alone together. As lynchings erupt across the South and the serving staff is slowly cut to make way for new mechanical household conveniences, Hadley begins to understand how dangerous and precarious his situation is.

The Reading Lessons follows the lives of two people born into a world that is unforgiving as a Hangman’s knot. Divided by skin color and joined by books, Hadley and Lucinda are forced to come together in the only place that will allow it, a land of printed words and dark secrets.

It's coming Summer 2013.

Book Learning: True Crime Florida

Update

Gilbert King was awarded the Pulitzer Prize April 15, 2013, for his book Devil in the Grove 


Christine and I popped over to the University of Central Florida for the UCF Book Festival Saturday. A host of authors and vendors were on hand, and I met several local scribes.

We didn't plan carefully. We just popped over to get a taste of the events, but we managed to be browsing when a panel with true crime authors kicked off at the campus Barnes & Noble.

It was an interesting session featuring three authors who'd penned books on Florida crime.

 The diversity of local law breaking proved intriguing and rivals Louisiana's, I believe.

Craig Pittman of the Tampa Bay Times was on hand to review his account of orchid smuggling and the fallout when a rare Peruvian orchid turned up at Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in Sarasota.

Apparently the twists and intrigues were greater than he expected at the outset, and the characters were as colorful as the flowers involved.

I saw Adaptation once upon a time, but apparently that was just the tip of the stamen.

Pittman said the man who discovered the rare orchid asked that it be named for him, and that was like hanging out a sign that said come indict me. Raids, court cases, international incidents and more fallout followed.

A darker crime is the focus of Trout from The Orlando Sentinel's Jeff Kunerth. He actually began the book as part of a master's program, and chose to focus on teens and the issues about trying juveniles as adults.

The account focuses on a 1991 murder at a store called Trout Auto Parts. Three teens were forever linked by a murder for hire scheme that unfortunately cost the wrong man his life.

Kunerth spoke of prison interviews with the three men, now approaching middle age, and of trying to discern the truth from the various accounts.

The non-Floridian of the group was Gilbert King, author of a historic true crime account from Lake County.

Devil in the Grove explores a 1949 case that eventually brought Thurgood Marshall to Florida to face the Ku Klux Klan and other dangers swirling around rape allegations against young African American men. It was a time when orange growing was big business, a brutal Southern sheriff ruled the county with an iron hand and the Klan active and brutal.

King spoke of drives deep into rural Georgia and other research efforts including FBI files and more.

As panels do, this one made me want to read all three books, and it gave me a little more perspective on Sunshine State crime.

It really is Carl Hiaasen and John D. MacDonald country.

Eerie, Atmospheric Music Video With Horror Touches from Anima Animus Animal

Very cool, as you'd expect from a music project that's described as Electro-Industrial-Gothic Steam Punk Opera. 

The Horror Haiku Series From Seraph Films

I've been enjoying the short  flicks in Seraph Film's Horror Haiku series. They're impressive, eerie and concise with a mixture of monsters and more.

 This is the teaser. Visit their You Tube page for all entries plus some other short films. 

The White Forest

I'm intrigued by mystical Victorian novels like The Night Circus, so when I ran across The White Forest by Adam McOmber on the bookstore shelf, I couldn't pass it up.

It makes good use of the period setting while following a heroine with an intriguing magical ability. Jane Silverlake can discern the souls of objects. She can sometimes prompt objects to reveal things as well.

As the novel opens, we learn that the ability may have been passed down from her mother, who may have died as a result of the ability. Jane and her father now live together in a crumbling British estate.

Much, besides her mother's death, has transpired before page one. Jane and her friend Madeline Lee have had a lengthy friendship and near rivalry over Nathan Ashe, another neighbor who was so intrigued by Jane's ability he was driven to mystical pursuits.

We learn he joined the army in order to travel to distant shores for research in to Jane's aptitude, and upon returning to London he joined the ranks of a cult leader known as Ariston Day. While involved with Day, he disappeared.

As the novel opens, Jane and Madeline are working to find the missing Nathan, while Jane is a suspect of Vidocq, a great French detective who's on the case.

Slowly, Jane learns more about Day's cult and his minions, called Fetches, and she begins to unravel new secrets about her abilities as well.

Flashes of surreal memory portray Nathan as a stag, subject of a hunt by a mysterious red queen in the mysterious and otherworldly White Forest of the title.

Was Jane responsible for his disappearance, or is there more to the mysterious white forest of her vision?

The reveals are strange and offbeat, building to a surprising and fantastical conclusion.

I liked the novel quite a bit, though I suppose I found the entry point into the story a little abrupt. Overall, it's a complex and intriguing historical fiction with a compelling and innovative heroine.

If you enjoy Victorian gothic narratives, you may enjoy it too.

Facebook Author Page

I'm not sure exactly why, but I delayed having a Facebook author page for a long time. First I had a page devoted to Midnight Eyes only. 

A recent big blog hop and a couple of other incidents sort of necessitated I cave, so I morphed the Midnight Eyes page into a Sidney Williams books page. 

If you are of a mind to, drop by and give it a like here.


:-)

RIP Rick Hautala and David and James

Important addendum: Learn how you can help Rick's wife Holly at Christopher Golden's blog

I was on Facebook last night engaging in light conversation with friends when messages started to pop up that Rick Hautala had passed away.

My first thought was: "Can this be real? He was posting things on Facebook just the other day."

A sign of our cyber times, I suppose.

It was true, a heart attack, and a sadness settled over me. Dave B. Silva, writer and editor of The Horror Show passed away recently, and James Herbert died this week. Significant losses for the horror community.

I don't remember exactly how my phone conversation with Rick came about back in the day, but, probably by letter, we agreed to a time for me to call him not long after my first book had sold. I think he was in the midst of his move to Warner Books after Night Stone and Little Brothers and several other successes that made him "that other horror writer from Maine."

It was a Friday night. Friday was my day off when I was a reporter. I worked Sundays.

I dialed him up at an agreed-upon time, and we talked long into that evening, and he never complained or "needed to get off the phone."

He told me the ins and outs of dealing with Zebra/Kensington.

He told me tales of hologram book covers that were a big marketing deal in those days.

He told me of wrangles over book revisions and standing strong in plot point arguments with editors.

He gave me advice about appearing at conventions: Just try to say something funny while on a panel so people remember you. 

Like all those moments you remember from long ago when something makes them suddenly poignant and relevant anew, it seems like yesterday.

RIP Rick Hautala (1949-2013)

"An Evening With Patrick Stewart" in Orlando

For great coverage of Patrick Stewart's Orlando Shakespeare appearance, here's a great article about him describing his biggest onstage flub and more. This post is more about how I got to go to that show. 

To put things in perspective, I first heard the name Jean Luc Picard more than 25 years ago. I was at the Atlanta Fantasy Fair, attending a panel about the then-dubious Star Trek revival. David Gerrold was a guest, and he sketched out the characters on the new Enterprise including the planned French captain. That was a good while before we had to join Star Trek: The Next Generation in progress when college football ran over.

So flash forward to a couple of weeks ago, and I browsed a catalog for Megacon that Jennie Jarvis had left on Roland Mann's desk and noticed Patrick Stewart was a guest. I thought that was interesting, but it's been a busy year with a move and beginning teaching and the like, and I've been to a lot of cons.

I mentioned it to Christine, who discovered The Next Generation through me and Patrick Stewart because of that and is not generally a science fiction fan. She came to appreciate and respect TNG and  we watched while we were dating.

So, I'm thinking, it's been a busy year, and I've been to a lot of cons in my life, maybe I'll just pass on attending a con even though it would be a lot of fun.

Then Christine noticed Patrick Stewart would be appearing at the Orlando Shakespeare Theater with Megacon's blessings.

Say,  I thought, that'd be a little different. Figured we'd never get tickets.

I didn't realize quite how big a Patrick Stewart fan Christine still is. When the second hand clicked past 11:59 a.m. on the day tickets went on sale, she was dialing the box office. Calls before noon would not be honored.

She got an all circuits are busy tone.

She redialed and got it again.

She dialed again and got that Close Encounters of the Third Kind-sounding tone that says the number you're calling is in an alternate universe.

She dialed again and it started ringing.

She got cut off before there was an answer.

Not gonna happen, I figured.

She kept dialing. I went back to reading student writing assignments.

Again, again, again with the re-dial. Then she got an answering machine and left a message.

"Guess we don't get anything," she said, walking back into the den, dejectedly.

"Shouldn't get our hopes up," she said.

We began to get back to the daily routine.

Then the phone rang. Christine took the call and I listened to garbled speech in the next room for a while. Figured it was the "So sorry, we can't accommodate you" call

Until she came bounding into the room, jumped up and down about as many times as she'd hit redial and told me we had front row seats. Wow.

Proved to be a fun evening. The house was packed. Michael Dorn and Marina Sirtis slipped in, and Sir Patrick answered questions and discussed his career in The Royal Shakespeare Company, his realized dream of playing Othello as a white mercenary and what a hottie Helen Mirren was in the Royal Shakespeare days. He also discussed his biggest stage mistake, which he made twice in same-day performances of King Lear.

We got a mention of David Suchet, who Christine idolizes as much as Sir Patrick for his portrayal of Poirot, and some tales of X-Men, TNG and working with Ian McKellan.

It was worth the effort and it was a great introduction to Orlando Shakespeare. I  hope to go back, especially for their planned performance of Dracula.

Veronica Mars Attacks

It was probably my tweet of the link last night that helped put the Veronica Mars movie over the top in its Kickstarter campaign.

Personally, I'd love to see a Veronica Mars movie. kickstarter.com/projects/55991…
— Sidney_Williams (@Sidney_Williams) March 13, 2013

But seriously, The Hollywood Reporter has, well, reported that the effort met it's goal of raising $2 million in less than a day.

I've always been hopeful that the rumored movie would get off the ground, because I was a big fan of the series, created by Rob Thomas. He's clearly a fan of the private eye genre and the mystery genre in general.

Veronica, played by Kristen Bell, was a teen private eye more in the mold of Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe than Nancy Drew. Elements of Agatha Christie crept into stories as well.

I got some eye rolls recently from students as I tried to convince them of the show's quality. I guess I felt a little vindicated reading this morning's headline. It's always fun to see a fresh take on noir and private eyes.

Guess we'll see how the film turns out in a year or so.

Silent Night, Bloody Night - Seminal Slasher Fluid

The Trailer

 

A prototype
If you look in the right places, you find footnotes which observe Silent Night, Bloody Night (1972) seems to be the earliest incarnation of the slasher film as we know it today.

There are other influences, to be certain, dating back to the Grand Guignol, but take a gander at the flick, and you'll see it certainly looks like the cookie cutter that shaped many films to follow.

Penned in part by Jeffrey Konvitz who'd go on to write the post-Exorcist demonic thriller The Sentinel,  the film seems to be on the crest of a cultural wave. Unlike other films that quickly followed, including Black Christmas (1974), it's about adults and not teens, but otherwise the familiar ingredients are present.

Since it wasn't released until 1974 and probably not widely seen in its day, it's fun to speculate on whether  it was directly influential or if it just somehow detected the same cultural elements and tributaries from earlier cinema that flowed forward to films like Halloween. Watch before the spoilers begin below.

Our Feature Presentation 

Overview
Not only does the film feature a host of slasher tropes. It revolves around the horror staple, an old dark house, Butler House, to be precise.

It's around 1970 as the story opens,  but we learn Wilfred Butler apparently flamed out on the doorstep 20 years earlier. That's from narrator and cult film favorite Mary Woronov as Diane Adams, the mayor's daughter, who's looking back on more recent carnage.

That was touched off, she recalls, with the escape of a mental patient who pounds through scenes with POV shots and heavy breathing reminiscent of Jason's shssss, shssss, shssss approach in Friday the 13th.

The escape coincides with the arrival of above-the-title star Partick O'Neil as the lawyer for Wilfred Butler's grandson, Jeffrey (James Patterson. No not that James Patterson.)

Jeff's finally willing to sell Butler House at the fire sale 1970 price of $50,000. The town fathers including a mute John Carradine, all of whom arrived in town during the Depression, are happy to buy with designs on tearing the place down. Who wants an old dark house around dragging down everyone's mood?

Before the papers can be signed on Christmas Eve, fitting the holiday trope into the mix, the adulterous O'Neil and his supermodel girlfriend, Astrid Heeren, are axed in the flick's bloodiest on-screen deaths, just like scores of promiscuous teens to follow in later films. There's even a scene of a Bible and crucifix being placed near the bodies to add symbolic weight.

It's also reminiscent at once of seeming protagonist Detective Arbogast's death on the stairs in Psycho and future surprise deaths of name stars doing day work.

Then founding fathers, and one mother, start to die soon while Jeff meets and seeks the help of Diane.

After they drive around in the cold and the dark a while, a lost diary, severed hands, strange  phone calls and more tropes follow until Jeff finally reaches Butler House and begins to read Wilfred's rambling account of what happened to his daughter and Jeff's mother.

There's family baggage to say the least, and a wonderfully creepy sepia flashback with bleeding blackshadows explains all on the way to the conclusion that makes Diane a prototype Final Girl years before Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode out-lasted less studious classmates.

There are moments that stretch credulity and others that might have had more explanation in the script, but  the overall effect is a bit grim, delightfully shudder-inducing and better than you'd expect.

Since the film got mostly drive-in release before building a cult following on VHS, it's a bit appropriate to watch it as a grainy and scratchy old theatrical print and get in-the-moment of forty years ago and contemplate a subgenre's course. It's also fun to contemplate what's going to happen at the end when the bulldozer collides with the thick, underpinning building blocks O'Neil's character alluded to shortly before his demise.

And again with higher definition
I suppose it's  appropriate that like every other '70s and early-'80s slasher, this one's getting a remake. Silent Night, Bloody Night: The Homecoming looks fairly faithful, though it also seems to include a Santa everyone thinks is in the original  because it sounds like Silent Night, Deadly Night.

The Remake trailer

The Next Big Thing Blog Hop - More on Louisiana Thriller Midnight Eyes and Five Bloggers to View

Hello, all. Welcome back to the blog hop. I hope you'll take time to visit the five bloggers linked below, following the Q&A. Thanks to Roland Mann for tagging me.

1: What is the title of your book? 

It's Midnight Eyes.

Originally, it was Dark Eyes, but I published a story by that name focusing on totally different subject matter  by another author in my podcast. The title was perfect for that short story, so I thought something different might be in order for my tale.

2: Where did the idea come from for the book? 

I find there's not one single idea for a book but actually a series of ideas. It's inspired loosely by one true story and fueled by facts about a rare psychological disorder. It also draws on my experiences working as a newspaper reporter and often covering the police beat.

3: What genre does your book come under? 

Thriller with horror elements or serial killer thriller, though it's got some mystery elements. It's Seven territory, I suppose.

4: Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition? 

Oh, wow. I've been trying to convince some producers it would make a great film, especially since it's set in Louisiana where there are nice economic incentives for production companies.

I'm not a casting expert but maybe Ryan Gossling for my criminologist Wayland Hood. There's a good role for an older actor as the hero's sheriff father. Could Kurt Russell be Ryan Gossling's dad?

5: What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? 

When a series of brutal murders plague his Louisiana jurisdiction, Sheriff Ty Hood has to turn to the last person he wants for help, his ex-FBI agent son.

6: Is your book self-published, published by an independent publisher, or represented by an agency? 

I was reped by an agent once who was more devoted to romance. It was published by Crossroad Press. It's a very active independent with titles by Clive Barker, Jack Ketchum, Tom Piccirilli and many more. First Crossroad brought out my previously published books, and then this one. I wrote it as part of what was supposed to be a segue from horror to thriller once upon a time, but it missed one wave or another in the markets.  I put it away, but this seemed like a good time to rewrite it and bring it forward.

 7: How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? 

Probably six or eight months. The rewrite took four to six.

 8: What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? 

Well, I hate to compare, though I just did it above, didn't I? It's in the Silence of the Lambs mold. It's not as dark as I Was Dora Suarez, but it moves into some grim territory. There's, I think, an interesting action sequence at the end. That came about because I was working as a reference librarian at the time I was first writing it. A man came in for information on a topic, and as I read about it, I thought: this would make a great ending for a book.

 9: Who or what inspired you to write this book? 

It came on the heels of my newspaper experience, and there's a lot of that in the book. I lived and observed a lot covering the crime beat. This is all of that, how cops work, how cops and reporters clash, how editors drive reporters. There's a lot wrong with the media today, but a lot of people have the wrong conception about reporters. No one's perfect in this story, and the focus is more on the cops, but there's a taste of cop and media clashes, and a taste of how cooperation can work.

 10: What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest? 

It's a mystery and a thriller, so there's a plot that has some questions in the mix. One positive reviewer gave me a lecture on the mystery side of the coin, but I like the way the story hangs together.

Now jump to some more authors with interesting books to discuss. 

Alphabetical by first name:

Avery Debow
Charles Gramlich
Dave Jeffrey
M.F. Korn
Wayne Allen Sallee

The Next Big Thing Blog Hop

If you're dropping by my blog for the first time today, welcome. You probably were led to my dark little corner of the web by Roland Man and The Next Big Thing Blog Hop.

I’d like to thank him for tagging me to participate. Click the link below to find out about his book, Buying Time and more.

http://rolandmann.wordpress.com/

I'm a writer mostly of scary stories with some mysteries mixed in. I've written novels, short stories, comics, audio dramas and also print ads, commercials and web copy.

A recent book
My book Midnight Eyes is a thriller with mystery and horror elements, and it was recently released in an audiobook edition.

It's one of a number of books of mine old and new that are now available from Crossroad Press. I'll talk more about it in a post next week.

I've also written young adult horror under the name Michael August, and one of  those titles, New Year's Evil, was optioned recently by a big Hollywood producer whose credits include the series Tales From the Dark Side.

I don't know yet if that's going to be turned into a TV-movie as hoped. I'm led to understand heartache is frequent in Hollywood, but it at least opened the door to a few more conversations for me with Hollywood folks, and as a result I'm finishing up a screenplay based on a short story of mine that originally appeared in Cemetery Dance magazine. We'll see how that goes.

I hope you'll drop back by next week for my Q&A and a list of more cool blogs to visit.

Biblioholic's Book Shelf - A Challenging Book, The Man With Three Eyes

Ran across this while browsing a little bookshop this afternoon. It's a 1955 UK edition that seems to be part of The  Challenge Series For Boys and Girls from The Children's Press of London and Glasgow.

This is one of the original titles the series apparently mixed in with reprints of classics such as The Swiss Family Robinson.

The book style resembles Western Publishing editions from the U.S., though it's slightly smaller in size than those.

I paid $5 for it.  

What's on the iPod? - 14 By Peter Clines

To say too much about this intriguing and Stoker-nominated novel would deprive readers or listeners of  a great deal of pleasure. It's a tale of discovery, and  it's really about the journey as much as about where it's going.

The protagonist, Nate Tucker, a data entry clerk, moves in to an impressively low-rent Los Angeles apartment. It's too good to be true of course. Even before he moves in, he is told there's something a little off about the building.

That becomes apparent when he learns there are mutant roaches in his kitchen as well as a high-end black light that picks up things that can't be seen by the naked eye.

Mysterious markings under the paint, the truth about Apartment 14 all hint at a strange and dark purpose, but why is it rented out at all?

Nate and a small band of fellow tenants set out to find answers, and soon it's an obsession.

A large portion of the book is about connecting the dots and defying the building manager, who's apparently a stooge for the keepers of the Kavach building, where no two apartments are alike, and there's something in the walls.

With a tantalizing setup, it's easy for a story to disappoint, but Clines weaves in great clues as the story builds to a nail-biting climax that generally proves satisfying.

This actually represents a great updated example of an identified strand of horror literature, but I won't say way kind of __-ian fiction it is. Just trust me, it's a blast.

Louisiana Thriller Midnight Eyes - Audiobook Now Available

I was pleased to learn this week that the audiobook for my Louisiana-based thriller Midnight Eyes is now available.

It's narrated by A.C. Fellner, and you can get a great sample listen via the Amazon listing.

If you're not an Audible subscriber, you could actually get it free with their 30-day-trial offer, which you already know about if you've ever listened to a podcast.

 This book began as a dream I had once upon a time. In the dream, I imagined an FBI profiler walking down a hillside in his hometown to view a brutal crime scene. It was actually a nightmare I guess.

Somehow, in that dream, I knew that Wayland Hood was the son of the local sheriff, that he was an expert on serial killers and that the killings were some of the worst anyone involved had ever seen.

I tried to write it not long after that, but things didn't come together.

A few years later, after working a while as a reporter, covering crime scenes, talking to cops and watching how cops and reporters interacted, the dream came back to me.

The nucleus of a couple of real murder cases began to converge, and Wayland became a former FBI agent called back into service to help his estranged father.

The dream re-emerged. Investigators converged at a crime scene on the banks of the Red River, and Wayland walked down that hill to help out.

Also available on iTunes.

An eerie vibe - The East - Official Trailer

I get a pleasantly eerie vibe from this trailer for The East, a new thriller with Alexander Skarsgard.

I think it kind of suggests there's always a way to find a fresh take on a genre. The plot involves an undercover operative falling for the leader of an eco-terrorist group.

We've seen that plotline before, of course. Betrayed with Debra Winger comes to mind. But harnessing our familiarity with the activities of Anonymous and other elements of our current moment, it looks new, tense and exciting.

Definitely on my "To See" list.

Pause and Play: Watching V/H/S/

V/H/S is on a lot of 2012 Best Horror lists, but I perceive about as many people dislike its shaky handheld collection of tales as enjoy it. I've wanted to see it since the buzz developed, but I didn't catch it at the local indy theater.

I had to wait for its Netflix watch-instantly debut, a factor that has to be considered. There is no universal movie-viewing experience these days. There are too many  ways to view a movie, and so, your results may vary.

I wound up watching on my Kindle over a couple of nights.

Tablet viewing in chapter form of handheld storytelling may be the best way to experience what's supposed to be less than ideal amateur photography.

Late-night, in the dark tablet viewing of low budget horror fare may also be ideal.

With all of those qualifications, know that I liked V/H/S quite a bit. Its two-hour length wasn't a factor. The fact that it didn't offer Cinemascope landscapes was irrelevant.

I found chilling moments and interesting horrific ideas.

My favorite tale is "Amateur Night" in which a group of fraternity thugs set out to record their sexual conquests with hidden-camera glasses. Things don't work out as planned, of course. I won't reveal too much, but it's an interesting variation on the type-of-story-I-won't-name.

My second favorite is "10/31/98." Let's just say spoiler warning here, because I want to note it's a new take on "The Howling Man." Instead of a weary hiker on a walking tour who encounters strange monks, it's a group of fraternity thugs decked out in Halloween costumes who encounter amateur exorcists in a house where there's supposed to be a costume party. As things start to go horribly wrong, all hell breaks loose, and it's visually cool. As cool as "The Howling Man" transformation? Maybe not quite, but still, pretty cool. The hills may have eyes, but the freakin' walls have arms.

Speaking of fresh takes, I think "Tuesday the 17th" comes as close to doing something fresh with the slasher subgenre as anything could hope to. It's an interesting blend of video format and slasher template, and it's pretty eerie. It ain't Jason in those woods.

While those are my faves, I also liked the eeriness of "Second Honeymoon" and "The Sick Thing That Happened To Emily When She Was Younger" has a cool title and some decent jump scares.

Perfect, nah, but interesting and, for me, it had its chills. 

For 2013: I Want To Be Scared

I hear this a lot: "That didn't scare me, and besides, I don't believe in ghosts (or fill in the blank), so this couldn't happen anyway."

I find that a little perplexing.

We react vicariously to fictional situations all the time. We laugh and weep at romances that are imaginary. We grip our chair arms as heroes scale great heights or battle impossible odds. We turn pages to find out if fictional defendants will be acquitted. That's entertainment.

Yet it's horror that really seems to get the jaw set.

Maybe it's that scary books and films represent a challenge to a lot of people. It's as if they're an affront to individual bravery, so many don't want to admit jumping at a film, let alone being subtly chilled by a fiction's crafted atmosphere.

As I contemplate that, I find myself agreeing with Matt Zoller Seitz's semi-controversial contention on Indie Wire that audiences were not watching From Russia With Love in the right frame of mind. OK, he said the film's not unsophisticated, you are.

I suppose I went through a phase where I felt similarly to many about horror. I've been at points where I felt too jaded as a viewer or reader to feel scared. I don't know that I was scared by The Exorcist when I saw it the first time. I probably wasn't watching it right.

But happily I've mellowed and learned to relax. I got nothin' to prove.

I was scared by The Exorcist several years ago when Netflix was new, Christine was taking grad school classes at night, and I had a couple of hours to view it alone in an empty house with the lights turned off.

When Ellen Burstyn checked out the attic, I reacted with her, the way the filmmakers intended.

When the first demonic face appeared on the wall in Insidious as I watched that several years later, I jumped again and even tweeted that a film had given me a legitimate scare.

Ditto watching Paranormal Activity, which I know many of my friends got an MST3K-style laughfest out of viewing. I can remember a laugh riot with one of my buddies watching Revenge of the Creature twenty years after its release. That's one way to watch a horror movie.

Or you can sit back and jump out of your skin when pots fall or symbols from The Lesser Key of Solomon are revealed in an old lady's living room.

I started thinking about all this anew when reading a blogger's 10 best list. Can't find it again, but it was a good list, and the author urged readers not to laugh that she'd included The Pact, having watched alone late and night and felt a chill. It's a modestly budgeted but quite decent haunted house tale with some cool chills, so no apologies should really be needed.

I resolve not be jaded as I experience films, books, comics and games in 2013. I want to be scared when I watch a scary movie.

If you don't, what are you watching for?

Fantasy Christmas List - A Blue Dahlia What if?

Even Santa can't answer every Christmas wish, but I started thinking about what I might ask for if that were possible. Sure, if you could have anything, world peace would be at the top of the list. Every pageant contestant knows that. After the obvious ones, though, what might it be interesting to have Santa summon up?

Well, I've been talking to students about film noir of late, and something hit me. What literary or film fantasy Christmas gift might I ask of Santa? Besides how Edwin Drood was really supposed to turn out?

Well, wouldn't it be cool if we could get a definitive cut of The Blue Dahlia as Raymond Chandler originally intended it?

As you probably know,  Dahlia is an original screenplay by Chandler, creator of Philip Marlowe and the template for tough-guy voiceovers to infinity.

Chandler worked as a screenwriter as well, contributing to adaptations of Double Indemnity and many others, and The Big Sleep was adapted as a Bogie and Bacall vehicle.

John Houseman, Professor Kingsfield but also producer of Blue Dahlia, and others have spelled out the bumpy production path of Dahlia.

It was filmed in 1945, and star Alan Ladd was about to be inducted into the U.S. Army, so things were moving fast.

Chandler's story was to focus on Ladd as a soldier returning from World War II. His wife is murdered at roughly the time he discovers she's having an affair, so he has to solve the crime to clear himself.

Ladd's war buddies, played by future sitcom stars  Hugh Beaumont and William Bendix, were to join in the action of the story. In Chandler's original plan, Bendix's character, injured in battle and prone to rage and forgetfulness, was to be the killer.

The plan was to have him discover the affair as well, kill in a fit of anger then forget his actions.

With the bus for the induction office waiting for Ladd, filming began. Then military officials stepped in and asked for rewrites.

A serviceman responsible for a murder at the height of WWII didn't seem like a good idea. A new ending had to be devised. The story of how Chandler completed the script and invented a new suspect is legendary. Read some of it on Wikipedia.

The original ending didn't end up on the cutting room floor. It was never shot. Chandler arrived at a new ending with some help from, well, help out of a bottle.

So if I could ask Santa for a fantasy Christmas present, it would be for a "writer's cut" of the film. It would be interesting to see  the original ending, where Bendix is confronted and the sad truth revealed to his uncomprehending mind.

It would have made for a tighter story and a better final product overall, perhaps not a perfect film, but one closer to the original vision.

Too bad decisions to revise were made before the cameras rolled.

Stupid Things I Could Do Holiday Edition

It's been a while since I've had one of those flashes of how things might go horribly wrong, but today...

The Christmas tree is placed in its corner. The ornaments are hung with care, and the lights are aglow, those multi-colored old fashioned style bulbs of red, blue, green and white.

The only problem is the branches on this beautiful fir look just a little dry.

With a watering can, I push back branches and crawl commando style to the tree holder to pour a fresh libation for O Tannenbaum.

My miscalculation is in how much water the tree stand will hold. The label cautions about not selecting a tree taller than six feet, but liquid capacity is not in the documentation.

Lifting branches to allow the proper angle for the tipping of a watering can, I estimate and listen to the trickle.

After a day in place, the tree seems to have drunk the stand dry, so I pour, and pour, and one of those prickly branches slips free to slap me for being too familiar.

Suddenly the water overflows, runs down the side of the stand, and I remember that those bulbs are powered with ELECTRICITY.

(Happily that didn't happen.) 

Suspects

The Chicago Sun Times offers an interesting look at a new book speculating that H.H. Holmes, the serial killer of Scarlet Mansion fame, might also be responsible for the Jack the Ripper murders. Read more here.

It's an interesting what-if? if nothing more, right up there with Orson Wells as a suspect in the Black Dahlia case. More on that here.

Perhaps it would make an interesting fictional story. We've seen more than one novel based on historic figures who happen to co-exist.

Now it might be interesting if Sherlock Holmes had to investigate the British murders of his American cousin, H.H.

Has that already been done?

I Bury the Living revisited

I have a bit of affection for I Bury The Living, a low-budget, late-50s thriller with an is-it-or-isn't-it- supernatural plot.

It aired on one of the monster-chiller-drive-in horror TV shows recently, probably because it's in public domain, and that prompted me to re-watch.

Richard Boone, of Have Gun Will Travel fame, stars as Robert Kraft. Everything revolves around Kraft's appointment as director of a massive cemetery. Deaths begin to occur when he sticks black pins in owned but not yet occupied burial plots on a cemetery map with a few markings on it that remind you of The Lesser Key of Solomon.

Kraft wonders if he possesses some dark magic and struggles to figure out what's going on as more deaths pile up.

There are a few stretches of the imagination, but it's a bit of fun and suspense, and it shows how a decent tale can be told with a few characters and just a few sets and suggestion.

Would a Dark Castle-style remake ruin it?

Happy Halloween 2012

Hope it's a great and scary day for everyone.

I'm celebrating by listening to an I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere episode called "Re: Vampires."

It's a discussion of Sherlock Holmes and Dracula, including a mention of a film that sadly never happened, Sherlock Holmes and the Vengeance of Dracula, described here by Harry Knowles.

It's helped get me in the mood for a chilling day!

Free Neil Gaiman Audio for Halloween Through Oct. 31

Audible.com is offering an exclusive Halloween story from Neil Gaiman as a free download, and $1 will be donated to charity.

According to Audible's Facebook page, "Click-Clack the Rattlebag," a ghost story that's "subtle, witty and deceptive" according to the synopsis.

You can read more on Audible's site, where Gaiman describes the tale's origins here.

Audible will donate to DonorsChoose.org when you download.

Favorite Short Stories - The Emissary by Ray Bradbury

In an essay from J.N. Williamson's How to Write Tales of Horror, Fantasy and Science Fiction,"  Ray Bradbury discussed the writing of many of his chilling stories collected in Dark Carnival from Arkham House, his first book. Many would later go into The October Country (1955).

In that piece, "Run Fast, Stand Still, Or The Thing at the Top of the Stairs, or New Ghosts from Old Minds,"  Bradbury wrote that he developed a list of nouns in his early writing life and set out to pen a story for each of those. "The Dwarf," "The Crowd," "The Jar" and many others followed.

One of my favorite of his noun tales is "The Emissary," a touching and beautifully written story that chills.

It's tells of a young boy with an illness that keeps him in bed, and the emissary of the title is his dog. Since he can't get out, he sends his the pet on missions, to bring back scents and signs and occasional friends from the outside world.

Of course, being a Bradbury story, it features the crisp and vivid sense display of autumn.

 Lying there, Martin found autumn as in the old days before sickness bleached him white on his bed. Here was his contact, his carry-all, the quick-moving part of himself he sent with a yell to run and return, circle and scent, collect and deliver the time and texture of worlds in town, country, by creek, river, lake, down-cellar, up-attic, in closet or coal-bin. Ten dozen times a day he was gifted with sunflower seed, cinder-path, milkweed, horse-chestnut, or full flame-smell of pumpkin. Through the loomings of the universe Dog shuttled; the design was hid in his pelt. Put out your hand, it was there…

It's a tale with touching moments, and it creates well the feeling isolation and illness in a past era.

Things go well until Dog fails to come home. There's worry, of course, and much more before the brief tale concludes. To say anything beyond would be to give away too much, but it is perfect reading for Halloween and for the fall and for the late night when the mind is open to suggestions of things not otherwise accepted.

It's a story to be read not with jaded, nothing-scares-me rigidity, but with a sense of dark wonder and willingness.

Check it out. It's a must in the original prose form, but it can be found in many adaptations. It was a Ray Bradbury Theater episode, was read by Tom Baker as a Late Night Story on British television and is a part of many other collections including The Stories of Ray Bradbury. Go on, give it a look, and come back and tell me what you think.

Bradbury's essay also appears in his Zen in the Art of Writing. 

American Horror Story Asylum

Didn't get to watch on premiere night, but thanks to the DVR, I'm now caught up on this season of American Horror Story.

Grim, strange, kinky, brutal.

It's immediately quite different from Season 1 in tone, though it continues to shuffle iconic horror tropes in interesting ways.

Ghost hunters in a contemporary haunted house get more scares than they bargained for, and then we flash back to a fifties with a much more horrific alien abduction than the Betty and Barney Hill case it channels, with a bit of  role reversal.

Then there's the '50s mental institution run by a typically stern but unconventionally complicated nun portrayed by returning Jessica Lang, and the ante is upped by James Cromwell as a twisted mad scientist type. Whew, lots of carnage and strangeness and a nasty edge.

I don't always find American Horror Story completely satisfying, but I'm always intrigued by what it does and how it does what it does.

I'll stick around for more.

Carrie: Back to Basics?

The tone of the new Carrie trailer is interesting. I had a ho-hum feeling when I read of another remake, even with the accompanying news that Hit Girl herself, Chloe Grace Moretz, would be joining Julianne Moore as Carrie and her mom, respectively.

The second trailer now available on WhatHappenedtoCarrie.com, along with that official URL and preferred hashtag, brings a little more enthusiasm.

In wonderful Stephen King fashion, you'll recall, the novel looks back on the event with a pop culture scrapbook approach that includes excerpts from articles including preliminary reports of a rain of stones from the Wendover, Maine, Enterprise, a  Reader's Digest "Drama In Real Life" account and references to a memoir called We Survived the Black Prom. 

Maybe the trailer's misleading, but I find myself intrigued by a potential point-of-view that looks at the town in flames and attempts to explain how things got that way. That gives things a little distance from the Brian De Palma original and even takes a step or two away from the 2002 version which flashed back from a police interview.

A remake's really uncalled for, but if there's gotta be one...