Creature Feature Tomb of Horror

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This week, TombRats, I present two radical works of humor and satire that will produce unease, laughter, and instigate fits of deep thinking. Enjoy!

GALAPAGOS REGAINED by James Morrow

These are dangerous times for religious satire, but certain brave authors will not be silenced. James Morrow began poking fun at religious beliefs with his marvelous TOWING JEHOVAH, and the fun continues with his latest novel that features a shrewd and astute protagonist, a young actress enmeshed in a Victorian-era intellectual revolution. Chloe Bathurst has been ejected from her chosen profession of theater arts due to her involvement with communist activism, but she remains undaunted, taking a position as nanny to the children of Charles Darwin. Mr. Morrow describes the famed naturalist as a shy, homebound man who has no interest in fame, content to putter about his home and engage with his veritable zoo of exotic animals collected from all over the world. Chloe, however, sees Darwin as a means to an end. Chloe’s beloved father has landed in debtor’s prison, and Chloe will require a lot of money to have her dad released. And so Chloe steals a copy of Darwin’s famous theory of natural selection and sets out to prove that God does not exist, hoping to thereby gain fame and much needed funding to pop poor dad from jail. Thus ensues a hilarious trek to the Galapagos Islands where Chloe and a group of like-minded zealots intend to collect specimens to prove Darwin’s theory and disprove the existence of God. Attacked by snakes, birds, and all manner of wildlife, etc., the intrepid truth-seekers press on, encountering cockamamie circumstances one after another. Funny, thoughtful, insane and wondrous, GALAPAGOS REGAINED is brilliant satire penned by brilliant author.

http://fanboycomics.ecrater.com/p/21688397/fearworms-selected-poems

FEARWORMS by Robert Payne Cabeen

As explained by the author, FEARWORMS are 1. The literary equivalent of musical earworms. 2. Lines or stanzas of a horror poem that repeat

continuously in a person’s mind. 3. Imaginative compositions in verse that leave the reader with a lingering feeling of dread. Mr. Cabeen proves his points with this collection of amusingly horrifying poems ingeniously crafted to bore into the reader’s brain and remain there. Within the pages of FEARWORMS you will attend a rather horrible convention of cannibal clowns, stroll a moonlit beach with a strange companion, visit the Hall of Fright, decide whether or not is safe to answer a ringing telephone, visit a very bad hotel, eat at a sketchy rib joint, party with the Christmas demon, Krampus, and much more! Creepy, elegant, scandalous and outright uproarious, these poems will definitely drill themselves directly into your head and stay awhile. Each of these poems has been gore-geously illustrated in full color by the author, and the cover has been created by Eisner-winning, Emmy-nominated artist Bill Sienkiewicz (Elektra: Assassin, Stray Toasters, The New Mutants). Robert Payne Cabeen (Tainted Treats, Heavy Metal 2000, A Monkey’s Tale, Walking with Buddha) has created a truly memorable collection of horror poetry and illustrations. Click on the cover graphic to purchase this title.

Who’s ready to jump into some killer science fiction?

UNBREAKABLE by W. C. Bauers

This, the Book 1 of the Chronicles of Promise Paen, is military science fiction with rivets! If you love hardware, weaponry, and rock-your-socks-off action in the mode of Honor Harrington and Signy Mallory, you will love this novel. Young Promise Paen is a kick-ass Marine based on the backwater outpost Republic of Aligned World (RAW) planetary system of Montana. However, being located in between rival human empires, the colonists of Montana are used to being ignored and have therefore become quite independent. RAW gives Montana little oversight until it becomes the hotspot origin in a brewing interstellar war. When pirates invade and threaten to destabilize the wobbly peace, the Republic orders a mechanized Marine infantry to sort things out. Leading the offensive is Marine Corps Lieutenant Promise Paen, formerly of Montana, a place she never wished to revisit. due to the terrible memories she left behind there. Promise joined the military to avenge her father, a Marine who was killed in a similar operation. The assault is a sweet piece of payback, but it comes at a cost when the entire region becomes unstable and enemies of the Republic assemble to attack. There will be war and there will be death, with Promise Paen at the forefront, rocking the coolest gear and hardware in the multiverse. Her mechsuit is nearly impenetrable and bristling with killer weaponry. W. C. Bauers’ first novel is a wild adventure in military space war, and I will be on the lookout for future installments of Promise Paen’s tale. For more about the author, visit his website at www.wcbauers.com.

THE TRADERS’ WAR by Charles Stross

If you missed Hugo Award winner Charles Stross’s Merchant Princes series back in the early 2000’s, Tor has repackaged the series into a group of omnibus editions. THE TRADERS’ WAR contains the second and third installments of the series, and I strongly recommend that you pick up a copy of the first two installments and read them before this book, because the interlocking novels are linear and somewhat complicated. This is a continuation of the story of a hip Boston journalist named Miriam, whose investigations reveal that her family members hail from alternate worlds, and some of her kin use their ability to time travel to smuggle modern weapons and devices back in time to periods that should not possess them. They also have a sweet drug cartel operating, since it’s pretty hard to catch smugglers who hop through time and dimensions. Miriam locates her alternate home, and it certainly isn’t anything like modern Boston. In fact, it has more in common with Earth’s medieval period, a time when women were considered chattel and had very little in the way of rights or property. This does not sit well with the independently minded and tech savvy Miriam, who finds herself being sold into an arranged marriage. And that’s the least of her problems. This is an excellent series for science fiction fans who enjoy complex and cerebral stories.

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About the Tomb Keeper (Or, who is this person of mystery)

J. L. (Judy) Comeau is an award winning short story writer whose work has appeared internationally in major horror and dark fantasy anthologies such as the Borderlands series, Best New Horror, The Years' Best Horror, the Hot Blood series, and the Dark Voices series in the UK. She is an active member of the Horror Writer's Association, and she lives in the Washington, DC area where she also teaches short story writing. Click on FIREBIRD to read one of her most anthologized stories.

To learn more about the Horror Writer's Association, just click on their logo!