Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Space Horrors


According to editor David Lee Summers, Space Horrors – the fourth installment of the Flying Pen Press series Full-Throttle Space Tales – is due out Oct. 1, 2010. The finalized version of the cover is shown here, and following is the description of the book which will appear on the back cover:

What horrors lurk among the stars?

If you dare venture into space, you will find planets where the rain will dissolve the flesh from your skeleton in a matter of minutes. There are undead stellar corpses that warp the very fabric of reality. There are bursts of radiation that will cook you alive within the walls of your spaceship.

And those are just the terrors we expect to face when we leave Earth.

In this volume you’ll find seventeen tales guaranteed to send a shiver down your spine. You’ll meet cold and dispassionate aliens—some so large they’ll swallow your starship whole, others so small they’ll turn your blood to dust. The prospect of encountering undead creatures such as vampires and zombies on Earth is frightening enough. Imagine meeting them while trapped during an interstellar flight. You’ll join men and women as they dare to explore haunted spaceships. In the end, you may discover that the most frightening creatures we’ll encounter among the stars are humans themselves.

We invite you to peer into the darkest reaches of space with Ernest and Emily Hogan, Sarah A. Hoyt, Dayton Ward, Danielle Ackley-McPhail and a dozen more new and veteran writers.

Here is the book's table of contents:

Introduction — David Lee Summers

Part I: Man’s Own Inhumanity
Poetic Justice — Alastair Mayer
Listening — Anna Paradox
The Walking Man — Glynn Barrass

Part II: Alien Menaces
Natural Selection — Simon Bleaken
Oh Why Can’t I? — CJ Henderson
Last Man Standing — Danielle Ackley-McPhail

Part III: Seductive Vampires
Anemia — David Lee Summers
Chosen One — Dana Bell
Sleepers — Selina Rosen
Divining Everest — Patrick Thomas

Part IV: The Spirit Realm
Into the Abyss — Dayton Ward
Salvage — David B. Riley
The Golem — Judith Herman

Part V: Shambling Zombies
In the Absence of Light — Sarah A. Hoyt
A Touch of Frost — Gene Mederos
Wake of the White Death — Lee Clark Zumpe
Plan 9 in Outer Space — Ernest and Emily Hogan

Thursday, July 1, 2010

"They like me ... "

I was happily surprised recently to find a complimentary PDF copy of the July 2010 issue of Golden Visions Magazine, edited by Christine Lajoie Golden – particularly since I didn’t have any fiction appearing in the issue.

As it turns out, I received the copy because I was chosen by readers of the magazine as one of the top five favorite writers for 2009. Readers were asked to vote for their favorite authors whose work appeared in either the print or online version of Golden Visions Magazine in 2009. Following is a list of the top five authors, as printed in the magazine:

TM Hunter
Guy Belleranti
Fran Jacobs
Lee Clark Zumpe
Gustavo Bondoni

My short story “The Blacktide” appeared in Golden Visions Magazine, Issue 8, Oct.-Dec. 2009. It was my second appearance in GVM, preceded by the story “From Dark Shores,” Issue 2, 2008.

Authors don’t often get to hear applause. For me, satisfaction comes from completing a story, having a story accepted for publication, seeing a story in print and receiving payment for a story. Knowing that a number of readers, having read my work, took the time to show their approval by voting for it is infinitely more fulfilling.

I am grateful to those who participated in the voting and I am delighted my work was so well received by readers of Golden Visions Magazine.