"Welcome to Count Gore De Vol's Tomb of Dark Delights. I'm J. L. Comeau, horror writer and resident Tomb Keeper. I have been charged with the daunting task of sorting and cataloging the Count's vast library of horror, science fiction and fantasy. Take a torch from the wall and follow me down the stone stairway into the darkness deep beneath the Dungeon. It's cold and damp down here--perfect for the kind of reading we're going to do. Never mind the shambling figures in the shadows, they're probably just some friends of ours looking for a good book. If you click on the cover, you'll be taken to a wonderful place where you can buy the book.
Now, let's reach into the musty stacks and see what we can find..."
(Clicking on the covers gives you more information and prices from Amazon.com and other outlets.)
Life can be heaven, and life can be hell. Same goes for fiction, but these
wonderful picks from Count Gore’s Teetering Towers of Terror Tomes are both
hellishly heavenly. Or heavenly hellish. Or something like that. Anyway, they’re
good! Let’s read!
HELLHOLE
by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
The authors who have collaborated in writing the latest bestselling installments
of Frank Herbert’s DUNE series have produced a spectacularly entertaining new
military space opera in a brand new series of their own! Hellhole is a planet
that has certainly earned its name. Asteroid impacts, monumental storms and
geophysical disasters have ripped Hellhole asunder, but still there are
intrepid, desperate colonists who dare to try to settle the rogue planet in
hopes of some kind of future. A ruined, exiled general who lost everything when
he took the moral high ground in opposing the greedy political schemes of the
so-called Crown Jewel worlds, Tiber Adolphus comes to the frontier planet of
Hellhole to help build the world into a stable, self-sustaining homeland. Nearly
forgotten by the ruling class he opposed, Adolphus and the colonists discover
that Hellhole has been hiding an astonishing secret. Beneath Hellhole’s blasted
surface lay the remains of a lost civilization and information that could
destroy all worlds. As a surviving member of noble heritage, Adolphus clings to
his family’s honor and sense of duty to make Hellhole into a paradise from which
he will launch a righteous, heroic war to regain the galaxy. Fans of the DUNE
series and Star Wars films will love HELLHOLE. Check out the trailer for
HELLHOLE here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUxH6aIXeTU.
VISITANTS:
STORIES OF FALLEN ANGELS & HEAVENLY HOSTS edited by Stephen Jones
One of my favorite editors of short fiction casts a dark eye upward for an
anthology about entities that 68% of Americans believe to be real beings.
Whether or not you believe in the existence of angels, you will be enthralled by
these wonderful stories about heavenly winged messengers of the fallen variety.
Combining new stories and reprints of stellar tales from masters of speculative
fiction, VISITANTS is a transcendent reading experience. Horror, science fiction
and fantasy fill the pages of this stunning anthology. Horror fans will be drawn
to Yvonne Navarro’s chilling tale, “ Plague Angel”, and Mark Samuel’s deadly
“Black Altars”, both tales of beings who are in the process of discovering
who—and what—they are. Science fiction fans will enjoy Michael Bishop’s slyly
funny “ Sariela” and SF giant Robert Silverberg’s “ Basileus”. Dark fantasist
Sarah Pinborough’s beautiful “Snow Angels” tells of children in a cancer hospice
search for magic in a snowy landscape, and Jane Yolen’s “An Infestation of
Angels” portrays angels as rapacious scavengers of human souls. Michael Marshall
Smith’s memorable “Being Right” is a sardonically charming tale of the terrors
of getting what you wish for, and a man with a very empty soul is chosen to
deliver the worst news mankind has ever received in Christopher Fowler’s “The
Beautiful Men”. You’ll also find Neil Gaiman, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Ramsey
Campbell, Graham Masterson and other superstar authors represented in this
marvelous anthology of nightmares and delights. Don’t miss this one!
My search for excellence in horror literature continues this week with two fine offerings from specialty publisher Chômu Press!
THE
DRACULA PAPERS, BOOK 1: THE SCHOLAR’S TALE by Reggie Oliver
This is the first installment of a projected four-volume mega-novel that details
the trajectory of an insignificant Balkan aristocrat who becomes the infamous
king of vampires. In a fictional introduction, Mr. Oliver recounts the discovery
of arcane documents collected by Abraham Van Helsing that describe the life of
the 17th century man who would become Count Dracula. There follows a foreword by
Van Helsing himself, written in the year 1894, following the terrible events
related by Bram Stoker in his novel, DRACULA, in which Van Helsing asserts that
THE DRACULA PAPERS is a true and accurate account. The account itself is written
by Renaissance-era scholar named Martin Bellorious, who was employed as a tutor
to the sons of the King of Transylvania. In 1632, Bellorious writes his
autobiography, recalling “certain incidents” in his life in which the reader is
made privy to formerly unknown information of the future Count Dracula in
claustrophobic Gothic prose reminiscent of the great M. R. James. Opening the
tale with an atmospheric journey across Europe, Mr. Oliver casts an ominous,
overarching atmosphere that draws the reader deeply into the narrative. From the
dark shadows of the grand Transylvanian castle keep to the oppulent palace of
the Ottoman Sultan in Istanbul, the first volume of THE DRACULA PAPERS describes
a surreal path that culminates in the ascendancy of the greatest archetypical
monster of all times.
I
WONDER WHAT HUMAN FLESH TASTES LIKE by Justin Isis
This masterful debut short story collection from Justin Isis stirs the senses
with interconnected tales of strange, chilling experiences, both sensory and
metaphysical, set in contemporary Japan. Using metaphor and artful imagery in
minimalist narratives, the author conjures a mindscape of the bizarre,
concentrating upon encounters with the unusual and taboo such as cannibalism,
exotic sexuality, determined cruelty, and the grotesque in many guises. In these
stories, Mr. Isis describes in exquisitely sharp focus a teenager raised by
strict vegetarians tempted to taste the most forbidden meat of all; a dull,
unimaginative middle-aged man finding rapture in his idolization of a
transvestite; college students grapple for selfhood through sexuality; a boy’s
reacts to the purposeful drowning of a dog; the act of suicide is transformed
into a spiritual art. In this world, all journeys lead to extraordinary
destinations. Written with astutely provocative language and assertive style,
Mr. Isis strikes out into anomalous topographies of human experience with
stunning prose replete with disturbing textures of shuddering unease. Iconic
author Quentin Crisp offers a perceptive introduction to Mr. Isis’s superbly
crafted short stories. For more about Justin Isis, please visit
http://justinisis.blogspot.com/.
To get even more information about these titles, including some of the best prices on the Internet, just click on each of the book covers and you'll be connected to
To visit the individual writer's website, just click on any underlined name.
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!
