The Best of Joe R. Lansdale (2010) New!

If you've never heard of Lansdale, now's your chance to catch up with this solid collection of short stories. Lansdale has become a legend in his own time, definitely one of the most innovative voices writing in horror today. His stories run the gamut of weird, wild, wacky and wonderful. Have you seen the movie Bubba Ho-Tep? That's Lansdale.

One online reviewer describes his writing as:

Texan storytelling at its best – rude, crude and offensive! His stories have a tall tale feel to them, and though they contain many unpleasant circumstances and characters there is also an underlying sentimentality to them.... The strength of Lansdale’s stories rest squarely on the shoulders of his colorful characters, who are usually piss-full of vinegar and colorful language. They mainly hail from the hearty backwoods of Texas or other rural places, living hard lives and encountering many strange creatures, including zombies, mummies and even albino mules.

Stephen King's N by Stephen King and Marc Guggenheim

Summary: There is something unearthly and mysterious deep in Acherman's Field in rural Maine. There is a Stonehenge-like arrangement of seven stones with a horrifying EYE in the center. And whatever dwells there in that strange, windswept setting may have brought about the suicide of one man...and harbor death for the OCD afflicted "N.," whose visits to the field have passed beyond compulsion into the realm of obsession.

Slights (2009) New!

by Kaaron Warren

"Sickening ... Gruesome... Outstanding." Publisher's Weekly Starred Review

I was browsing through some new paperbacks last week and my eyes were immediately drawn to this cover for Slights by Kaaron Warren ... creepy, wouldn't you agree? Then there's what the book is about:

STEVIE IS A KILLER.

But she brings her victims back to life to demand of them: "WHAT DO YOU SEE?"

Now she's about to find out for herself...

Cue appropriately ominous organ music ...

So now it's become a must-read. Review to follow!

This fall AMC has combined forces with Frank Darabont to bring us a zombie-licious series based on Robert Kirkman's Walking Dead graphic novels.

Why you should be watching:

1) Zombies - Zombies rock okay?? Beyond their meta-mystique appeal, they are truly terrible and terrifying. Anything that is driven by pure, mindless instinct to rip you apart and EAT you from the inside out, you just gotta respect. Furthermore, Zombies are usually accompanied by an apocalypse, and who doesn't bow down to a good "the world's gone to hell you better kiss your behind goodbye" scenario? I do! I do!

2) Frank Darabont you're my hero - very few writers/directors can successfully translate the sheer storytelling genius that is Stephen King to the big screen. Most of the time, the adaptations wind up a great big steaming pile of you know what. There are exceptions, and Frank Darabont's work is among them (The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, The Mist). Darabont *loves* horror, and has wanted to "work with zombies" since he was 14 years old.

3) AMC The rise of specialty cable networks like HBO, Showtime and AMC have ensured that talented writers are not fated to go the way of the Do-Do bird, at least not yet. It's no coincidence then that AMC's tagline is: Story Matters Here - the network home of Mad Men and Breaking Bad.

Hater (2009)

by David Moody

"A head-spinning thrill ride ... Hater will haunt you long after you read the last page" --Guillermo Del Toro, director Pan's Labyrinth

Product Description:
Soon to be a major motion picture produced by Guillermo Del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth), and directed by Juan Antonio Bayona (The Orphanage), Hater is the story of Danny McCoyne, an everyman forced to contend with a world gone mad. For reasons unknown, vast numbers of the human population suddenly become irrationally violent, killing all who cross their path.

Dog Blood (2010) New and popular!

Product Description:

...the electrifying sequel to Hater where humanity fights itself to the death against a backdrop of ultimate apocalyptic destruction

The Earth has been torn into two parts...everyone is now either Human or Hater. Victim or killer. Governments have fallen, command structures have collapsed, and relationships have crumbled. Major cities have become refugee camps where human survivors cower together in fear. Amidst this indiscriminate carnage, Danny McCoyne is on a mission to find his daughter Ellis, convinced that her shared Hater condition means her allegiance is to people like him. Free of inhibitions, unrestricted by memories of peace, and driven by instinct, children are pure Haters, and may well define the future of the Hater race. But, as McCoyne makes his way into the heart of human territory, an incident on the battlefield sets in place an unexpected chain of events, forcing him to question everything he believes he knows about the new order that has arisen, and the dynamic of the Hate itself.

Click here for author's official website!

The Cryptkeeper

Full Dark, No Stars

by Stephen King

The master of the macabre returns with four spine-tingling novellas, meant to thrill and chill!!

Amazon Best Books of the Month, November 2010: When a master of horror and heebie-jeebies like Stephen King calls his book Full Dark, No Stars, you know you’re in for a treat--that is, if your idea of a good time is spent curled up in a ball wondering why-oh-why you started reading after dark. King fans (and those who have always wanted to give him a shot) will devour this collection of campfire tales where marriages sway under the weight of pitch-black secrets, greed and guilt poison and fester, and the only thing you can count on is that "there are always worse things waiting." Full Dark, No Stars features four one-sitting yarns showcasing King at his gritty, gruesome, giddy best, so be sure to check under the bed before getting started. --Daphne Durham

Product Description:

1922: "I believe there is another man inside every man, a stranger . . ." writes Wilfred Leland James in the early pages of the riveting confession that makes up "1922," the first in this pitch-black quartet of mesmerizing tales from Stephen King. For James, that stranger is awakened when his wife, Arlette, proposes selling off the family homestead and moving to Omaha, setting in motion a gruesome train of murder and madness.

Big Driver: In "Big Driver," a cozy-mystery writer named Tess encounters the stranger along a back road in Massachusetts when she takes a shortcut home after a book-club engagement. Violated and left for dead, Tess plots a revenge that will bring her face-to-face with another stranger: the one inside herself.

Fair Extension: "Fair Extension," the shortest of these tales, is perhaps the nastiest and certainly the funniest. Making a deal with the devil not only saves Dave Streeter from a fatal cancer but provides rich recompense for a lifetime of resentment.

A Good Marriage: When her husband of more than twenty years is away on one of his business trips, Darcy Anderson looks for batteries in the garage. Her toe knocks up against a box under a worktable and she discovers the stranger inside her husband. It’s a horrifying discovery, rendered with bristling intensity, and it definitively ends a good marriage.

Like Different Seasons and Four Past Midnight, which generated such enduring films as The Shawshank Redemption and Stand by Me, Full Dark, No Stars proves Stephen King a master of the long story form.