Friday, May 29, 2009

Review - Potter's Field 3


Everyone who chances upon this blog post should immediately venture forth and read my review of Potter's Field 3, for two reasons. First, it's a great anthology ... handsome, full of scary stories and nicely priced. It's available through Sam's Dot Publishing. If you're a fan of speculative fiction and you are not familiar with this publisher - you should be.

Reason No. 2 is more self-serving. I was recently informed that the Literary News section of Tampa Bay Newspapers is in danger of being discontinued due to low traffic. Furthermore, it was suggested that people aren't reading as much anymore. For some time, book reviews in the printed editions of Tampa Bay Newspapers' weeklies have been rare. Many daily newspapers also have transplanted their book review sections to the Internet or have eliminated them altogether.

I find the trend discouraging, particularly because book reviewers have the ability to take books like Potter's Field 3 and introduce them to a broader audience. While I do review mainstream books from big publishing houses, I prefer to balance that with titles from lesser known companies - books by authors and editors whose skill and dedication rival bestselling literary figures but whose works have not yet reached the peak audience.

So, I'm hoping that some of those devoted readers - who aren't reading as much anymore - will take a moment to check out the Literary News section at Tampa Bay Newspapers, or visit their own hometown newspaper to see what their own local book reviewer is recommending these days.

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Shameless Self Promotion No. 9


Edited by Thomas Brannon and John Sunseri, Cthulhu Unbound is now available from Permuted Press.

Cthulhu Unbound is the first volume in a two-volume set of anthologies focusing on genre-blending Cthulhu Mythos tales. My story, "The Hindenberg Manifesto," is presented in this fine collection. Set in 1937, the tale mixes historical events, sinister spies and secret societies as a clandestine American organization tries to recover crucial, encrypted information smuggled out of Germany by an opponent of Hitler's Nazi regime.

From the publisher's description of the book:

Welcome to a place where bleak noir cityscapes share a Technicolor sky with combat fighters, where you can find gunslingers from the Old West and a lost chapter from a literary classic, all with something in common: Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. This is a place where the Crawling Chaos has to solve his own murder and the Old Ones come up against the Gods of Las Vegas, a place where the new player in London's underground isn't human and masked heroes go toe-to-tentacle with eldritch horrors.

Other authors included in this volume are Linda L. Donahue, Trent Roman, Kevin Lauderdale, Doug Goodman, Bennet Reilly, Dr. Kim Paffenroth, Steven Michael Graham, D.L. Snell, Lisa Hilton, Rick Moore, Ben Thomas, John Goodrich, John Claude Smith and C.J. Henderson.

That should serve to whet your appetite for what is being called one of the best Cthulhu Mythos collections in years. Visit the Book Store at Permuted Press or purchase a copy at Amazon.com, Horror Mall, Barnes & Noble, or Powell's Books.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Recent Acquisitions No. 2



Ever searching for fine reading material to add to the overflowing shelves in my personal library, I recently visited a used bookstore on Madeira Beach aptly named Books to the Ceiling. I slowly made my way back to the back corner of the store, to the crowded shelves where all the science fiction and horror books had taken up residence as if exiled by the much larger mainstream fiction section.

Now, the books are generally arranged alphabetically by author's last name ... at least, that seems the intention of the store's proprietor and the various underlings who try to keep chaos from overwhelming the inventory. That said, the stacks of books do in fact reach the ceiling in certain places. Likewise, there are books neatly collected in piles on the floor in some areas.

That happens to be where I discovered a little treasure trove of 1970s speculative fiction periodicals. There were probably between 20 or 25 of them, and I picked through them and selected five or six that seemed most interesting to add to my collection. These are nice reading copies, nowhere near mint condition, but lovingly cared for by their previous owner(s).

Among them are the two pictured: the January 1976 issue of Galaxy, featuring fiction by Joanna Russ, Spider Robinson and Steven Utley; and the August 1972 issue of Fantastic Science Fiction & Fantasy Stories, featuring fiction by Avram Davidson, James Tiptree Jr. and Barry N. Malzberg as well as what I presume is the first publication of the Conan novella "The Witch of the Mists" by L. Sprague deCamp and Lin Carter.

The magazines, by the way, were priced at less than $1 each - cheap as chips!

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Shameless Self Promotion No. 8


A truly transformational tale, my short story "The Noble Thing" appears in the new issue of Cemetery Moon, a quarterly, digest-sized magazine produced by Fortress Publishing Inc. The issue boasts a slick, glossy cover and some great fiction by the likes of Wayne Summers, Natasha Bennett, John B. Rosenmen and Sarah Terzo, among others. The cover art, "Bloodlust," was created by digital artist Emily Heatherly whose dark, surreal work is showcased in an online gallery.

Shameless Self Promotion No. 7


Hadrosaur Productions has just released Tales of the Talisman, Volume IV, Issue 4, which includes my short story "When Time Slips," a tale with a classic Twilight Zone feel to it. The issue also features fiction by J Alan Erwine, Mike Allen, Janni Lee Simmer, Jim Chandler, K.S. Hardy, Jim Lee and others; as well as poetry by Jennifer Crow, Lawrence Barker, Marcy Lynn Tentchoff, Christina Sng and others. Sng, whose poetry has earned several honorable mentions in the Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, has been on a kind of hiatus of late so it's good to see her work popping up again.

I teamed up with Tales of the Talisman editor David Lee Summers last year to put together a collection of tasty vampire short stories called Blood Sampler: Subtle Sips & Spicy Shots. It is still available through Sam's Dot Publishing and the Genre Mall.

Earlier this year, Summers released his fifth novel, The Solar Sea, which tells the tale of humanity's first voyage to Jupiter and Saturn.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Review - Star Trek: Countdown


Tampa Bay Newspapers
has posted my review of IDW Publishing's Star Trek: Countdown. The 104-page trade paperback collects the four-issue series produced this year in anticipation of J.J. Abrams' blockbuster Star Trek.

From my review:
... Star Trek: Countdown mainly provides a tidy study of the Romulan Nero, outlining the inspiration for his malice and the atrocities he will commit. For those who read it before going to see Abrams’ much-praised reboot of the franchise, the comic book may as well be called Star Trek: Spoiler Alert ... read more.

Shameless Self Promotion No. 6


Barbara Custer, editor of Night to Dawn magazine, was kind enough to reprint my review of Octavia Butler's Fledgling recently. Appearing in Night to Dawn, Issue 14, the review is just one reason to check out this vampire-themed publication. Also appearing in the issue is fiction by Tom Johnson, Angeline Hawkes, Wayne Summers and Caroline Bernard-Smith; poetry by John Grey, William Blake Vogel III and Cathy Buburuz; and artwork by Buburuz, Marge Simon and Chris Friend.

I have long been a fan of Chris Friend's illustrations, incidentally. I probably first became acquainted with his work in the pages of magazines like Deathrealm, Black Petals and Dreams and Nightmares. To wonder at the weirdness of his work, visit his web gallery.

Shameless Self Promotion No. 5



Admittedly, some time has passed since my last post to this blog ... but I am committed to getting back on track. For starters, I have a short stack of publications I need to report. I don't just list these to fulfill an inner need to glorify myself, you know ... the idea is attract attention to these fine magazines and anthologies in hopes of increasing sales.

With that in mind, I submit for your approval Thrilling Tales of Fantastic Adventure, Issue 4, available through Rainfall Books. This issue contains three "uncanny, exciting and mysterious" stories including "The Garden Fortress" by David Conyers, "There Was a Rocket" by Pierre Comtois and my contribution, a short story called "Cracks" which happens to be the first piece of fiction I sold back in 1991, reprinted here for the first time since its debut in Nocturnal Lyric, Issue 28, 1992.