| Another Datlow anthology |
[May. 26th, 2012|08:59 pm] |
I do try to keep up with all the latest horror anthologies, so it was with some alarm that I recently learnt of the impending publication of Volume 4 of Ellen Datlow's Best Horror of the Year series. Why? Because I didn't even know there was a Volume 3! Needless to say I immediately grubbed a copy of Volume 3 from the internet, so that all my lucky readers may read my thoughts on it.
( The magic number? ) |
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| Ebook of Grimscribe Now Available |
[May. 26th, 2012|06:31 pm] |
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http://hellnotes.com/ebook-of-grimscribe-now-available?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ebook-of-grimscribe-now-available http://hellnotes.com/?p=9739
Subterranean Press has made Thomas Ligotti’s Grimscribe available in a digital edition for only $6.99.
Description: Grimscribe: His Lives and Works is the second volume in a series of revised, definitive editions of the horror story collections of Thomas Ligotti. First published in 1991 by Carroll & Graf in the United States and Robinson Publishing in England, Grimscribe garnered significantly more recognition than Ligotti’s first collection, Songs of a Dead Dreamer, which was issued two years earlier by the same publishers.
In the view of many commentators, it was with Grimscribe that Ligotti consolidated his reputation as a horror writer of high stature. As Steven J. Mariconda remarked in a 1992 essay surveying the stories in Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe: “Of the two collections, Grimscribe achieves near-classic status and is recommended to all.” Included in this volume is “The Last Feast of Harlequin,” a novella that, in the observation of H. P. Lovecraft scholar and biographer S. T. Joshi, “may perhaps be the very best homage to Lovecraft ever written.”
You can pick up the Kindle edition here: Grimscribe
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| Rubenstein Joins JournalStone As Senior Editor |
[May. 26th, 2012|05:30 pm] |
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http://hellnotes.com/rubenstein-joins-journalstone-as-senior-editor?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rubenstein-joins-journalstone-as-senior-editor http://hellnotes.com/?p=9737
JournalStone Publishing President, Christopher C. Payne has announced the hiring of Norman L. Rubenstein, of Surprise, Arizona as the company’s newest employee in the position of Senior Editor.
Rubenstein, a former litigation attorney and Administrative Law Judge in Chicago, IL for over twenty years, brings to JounalStone seven years experience as an editor, magazine columnist and horror literature and film reviewer. Rubenstein also organized and presented a number of rather large science fiction conventions in conjunction with the BBC for their Doctor Who television series and was featured on a nationally televised segment of the Entertainment Tonight TV show back in the 1980′s. He went on to co-produce ten stage plays including one, Murder By Misadventure, that ran upon London’s famed West End for six months, and a world premiere of an A. R. Gurney play, The Fourth Wall, starring George Segal and Betty Buckley in Chicago.
Rubenstein has seen well over one hundred of his Horror & Thriller Genre book and film reviews purchased and published over the past seven years, has written a regular column for Fear Zone “Macabre Musings,” is and/or has been a regular reviewer for Horror World, a regular columnist for Shroud Magazine, and also, is a reviewer for Cemetery Dance Magazine and Dark Scribe Magazine, as well as serving a stint as the Reviewer for the Pod Of Horror podcast hosted by author and professional radio host, Mark Justice, and is a frequent convention speaker, panelist, and moderator.
As an author, Rubenstein has had short fiction stories he’s co-written published in the anthologies Fear Of The Dark, by Horror Bound Magazine Publications (“The Closet” co-authored with Carol Weekes, 20111) and the recent prestigious charity anthology, Horror for Good, Cutting Block Press (“The Widows Laveau” with Steven Booth, 2012). Rubenstein has also published non-fiction, including an essay on H. Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines for the David Morrell and Hank Wagner edited hardcover Anthology, Thrillers: 100 Must Reads from Oceanview Publishing (2010), and the “Editor’s Foreword” to the Dark Regions Press lettered hardcover edition of Gene O’Neill’s HWA Bram Stoker Award™ winning collection Taste Of Tenderloin (2012).
Rubenstein is an active member of both the International Thriller Writers (ITW) and Horror Writers Associations (HWA), has been a member of and then served two years as Chair of the HWA’s Stoker Additions Jury, completed a stint as the Chair of the 2011 HWA’s Stoker Anthology Jury, and has most recently started his second year as Co-Chair of the HWA’s Bram Stoker Awards™ Committee.
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| Dark Nights |
[May. 26th, 2012|04:29 pm] |
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http://hellnotes.com/dark-nights?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=dark-nights http://hellnotes.com/?p=9735
Dark Nights, the latest short story compilation by horror writer John Schweingrouber, is now available exclusively for e-readers. Dark Nights brings seven new short works to avid horror readers looking for a new twist to the genre.
“I love writing something unique and frightening. But why end there?” asks Schweingrouber. “I love to take what seems like a good ending for a short story and toss in a twist, something that the reader won’t see coming,” he adds. “I strive to transform a memorable story into an unforgettable one.” From the traditional monster in the closet to the vampire tennis player, and everything in between, Dark Nights offers a little something for every horror reader.
A short story compilation written to thrill and chill, Dark Nights leads the reader out to the edge in a series of “Twilight Zone” type of stories. From the supernatural and macabre to the real life crimes of passion, Dark Nights presents a set of twisted tales you won’t forget.
You can pick up a Kindle edition here: Dark Nights
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| Ghoul Warning & Other Omens |
[May. 26th, 2012|04:00 pm] |
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http://hellnotes.com/ghoul-warning-other-omens?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ghoul-warning-other-omens http://hellnotes.com/?p=9732
PS Publishing has released a signed, hardcover edition of Ghoul Warning & Other Omens, a poetry collection by Brian Lumley.
Description: Brian Lumley’s writing career commenced with a series of short stories written while he was serving 22 years in the Corps of Royal Military Police. Beginning in 1968, Arkham House published two volumes of his weird fiction set mainly in the Cthulhu Mythos of H.P. Lovecraft — The Caller of The Black, and Horror at Oakdeene — followed by a short novel, Beneath the Moors. These were followed in turn by several novels of Horror, Fantasy and Science Fiction, all published by major houses in the USA, before Brian retired from the Army in December 1980, when he took up writing full time. His breakthrough vampire novel Necroscope was published in 1986 in the UK, and two years later in the USA; since then it has never been out of print and is currently available in thirteen countries, along with its many sequels.
Now the author of close to sixty books, Brian Lumley lives in Torquay, Devon with his American wife, Barbara Ann, or “Silky” to their many friends.
You can pick up a copy directly from the publisher here: Ghoul Warning
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| Still Lake |
[May. 26th, 2012|03:27 pm] |
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http://hellnotes.com/still-lake?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=still-lake http://hellnotes.com/?p=9730
Biting Dog Press has picked up and released Still Lake by Sara Brooke. Originally titled, Lead Water, the book has been renamed and a new cover added.
“Still can’t believe I have a publisher after only 2 months of self publishing,” says Brooke.
Description: It’s always been there, but now something has changed.
Flening has always been a quiet, friendly town. Nestled in the forests of Northwest Florida, its home to a small population of familiar faces and the natural beauty of Still Lake.
But now, the town is changing. People are getting sick and some are going crazy. A mysterious illness is sweeping through, destroying families, and threatening to spread further.
People are changing.
Dr. Craig Lenton is desperately trying to stop the sickness before he and the people he loves become part of the carnage, but time is running out and the calm waters of Still Lake may be hiding something sinister and evil underneath…
You can pick up the Kindle edition here: Still Water
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| My tweets |
[May. 26th, 2012|12:00 pm] |
- Fri, 13:53: Gorgeous, hoppy session ale. Cracking. — Drinking a Zymic by @StewartBrewing at @kil_der_kin — http://t.co/Je4SXe85
- Fri, 16:00: Not a Strong Mild, but a stronger than usual mild. Phew! Lovely complex malty flavour. (Gunpowder Strong Mild) http://t.co/L1S9iDZJ
- Fri, 18:54: Pale ale with Cascade hops providing more citrus than the lemon it allegedly contains. Be excellent... (Lemon Dream) http://t.co/5PR9lEPk
- Fri, 19:52: @on_lothianbuses, your new leaflets and website say the N25 goes from Waverley Steps when they actually go from George Street?
- Fri, 19:53: @on_lothianbuses - I've just had to field a phone call from a confused tourist friend because of this!
- Sat, 04:00: @UltravoxUK @midgeure1 @CCrossky It arrived :-) This is what the excessively flashy amp+speakers connected to the Mac has been waiting for!
- Sat, 05:06: "I'm here to grow your little monument"?! #Ultravox
- Sat, 05:44: It is a cat sized sunbeam and it is mine, all mine! http://t.co/yrzwFw2a
- Sat, 05:48: RT @leannich: RT @chiller: Can we stop calling feminists who are transphobic "radical feminists" and use the correct term "transphobic f ...
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| My tweets |
[May. 26th, 2012|12:00 pm] |
- Fri, 15:54: I am informed that washing your feet in the bathroom sink is Weird. All right then, ok.
- Fri, 15:56: (That said, I can think of a lot of weirder places, and the *kitchen* sink is only one of them...)
- Fri, 15:58: RT @Earwickr: And already the olduman's olduman has godden up on othertimes to litanate the bonnamours. Sonne feine, somme feehn avaunt!
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| May Books 10) The Great O'Neill, by Sean O'Faolain |
[May. 26th, 2012|09:47 am] |
Like most kids growing up in Catholic Ireland, I "did" some of O'Faolain's short stories at school. I guess I hadn't appreciated how big a figure he was in the (admittedly small) world of the arts in mid-century Ireland, constructing the literary self-image of the new state as it found its way to becoming the Republic. This book was his third history book in five years, coming after his edition of Wolfe Tone's autobiography in 1937 and his biography of Daniel O'Connell in 1938; he claims not to be attempting a serious academic history, but this is disingenuous; he must have realised that a book on such a subject by a writer of his profile would establish received wisdom for decades to come.
I'm more interested in the subject than the writer. O'Neill was the leader of the Irish side in the last struggle between the old Gaelic order and the London government; surrendering after nine years of war in 1603, he slipped away to exile in Rome and died there. For O'Faolain's purposes, he is of course a hero in that he tried but failed to establish an independent Irish state. But there were a couple of interesting slants which prevent it from being a hagiography.
Hiram Morgan has disproved one of the key planks of O'Faolain's narrative, that the young O'Neill was fostered in England, and Morgan is rather better on the overall politics and culture of the era. It's a bit of a shame, actually, because O'Faolain is big on the importance of communication and even compromise with the English, and O'Neill's (fictional) early life in England equips him to be the right man for this job. Where O'Faolain does better than Morgan is on the human level. His sixteenth-century Ireland is a rather sexy place (certainly in comparison to the repressed de Valera / McQuaid state). O'Neill's marital history is explained in great detail, including the elopement with Mabel Bagenal, the daughter of one of his regional English rivals. O'Faolain is fairly neutral rather than scandalised about this; I guess that he hoped his readers would draw their own conclusions.
And his account of the end of the war is rather good, though here he does slip into moral lessons from history a bit. Though a proud Cork man himself, O'Faolain admits that Kinsale was practically the worst place for the Spanish to land; had they come anywhere in the north or northwest coast, O'Faolain reckons they would have won the war fairly quickly. As it was, a less good English leader than Mountjoy could easily have screwed up the siege. But it's impossible to find a positive description of the way the arriving Irish soldiers blundered into a catastrophic and decisive defeat, and O'Faolain goes into splendid descriptive detail about it. O'Neill is in the end the victim of a bad Spanish decision, unusually good English command, and a lack of discipline among his own supporters and allies. My memory is that Cyril Falls, writing only a few years later and as an avowed Unionist, is actually a bit more even-handed in his assessment.
Anyway, not an essential book for historical understanding of the period, but an important book for understanding more recent perceptions of the events. And quite a good read. |
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