The Best Writers You're Not Reading!

I'm a bit on a book kick right now...mostly because my cable is was still being hooked up at our new place which has turned me to my books again. So I've decided to give a shout out to two authors who I feel have not gotten a lot of credit out in the writing world. And both of these writers are old friends of mine. I suppose you can consider this post a favor to a friend of sorts but honestly, I would not bother writing a post praising something I didn't like...unless its another attempt to tear into Exorcist: The Beginning. Regardless, they are both extremely talented writers and I feel deserve a shout out on our pithy little Internet soap box. So without further ado, here are two writers I truly feel are worth checking out.

Christine Morgan
Cured Meat found in The World is Dead Anthology and The Barrow Maid found in History is Dead Anthology
Christine's two zombie stories are stellar and I was lucky enough to be a beta reader for both stories. WHY she picked me is a bit of a mystery since my "superior" grammar and spelling is a tell tale sign that I am really not a writer. I think its because I am an avid zombie fan and she was just giving me a bone (No pun intended). And while both stories are about zombies they are completely different from each other .Cured Meat is a story told through a zombie's perspective and The Barrow Maid is a Nordic historical tale. The Barrow Maid is well researched as a historical piece and well...two words...Viking Zombies!! Its fun, action packed and gives you what you want; zombies swinging swords, kicking ass, and taking names. My particular favorite though is Cured Meat. It's an extremely unique story and Christine voices the zombie both in a human yet extremely creepy manner. Both are wonderful reads. The Anthologies have many other fantastic stories in them as well so I assure you they are worth picking up! But personally, Christine's are my favorite. You can find both anthologies on Amazon. And if you want to read more of Christine's work (she also writes fantasy, horror, and children's books!) check out her websites http://christine-morgan.net/ and http://www.sabledrake.com/.


Rob St. Martin
The Truthseekers Series
While this isn't strictly horror, Rob's Truthseekers books do have some elements of horror in them (vampires, zombies, magic, and some gruesome murders). So far he has two out and is working on a third...he BETTER be working on a third or I will go up to Canada and strangle it out of him. Truthseekers is a young adult series that I became addicted to at the age of thirty-three. The series follows a girl name Ashley, who moves to a small town named Blackriver after her parents are brutally murdered. Her adventures are told in a series of short stories that begin to revel strange conspiracies that involved her family and will soon involve her. Yes, I made that sound very vague but there is so much to the story and such a rich world created that I don't want to give anything away. The reason I became addicted to his series is because he never talks down to his audience, making his work intelligent and accessible to both teens and adults. Don't let the young adult label fool you, this is a great story, a interesting world, and some quirky characters.
You can pick up Truthseekers: Welcome to Blackriver and and Truthseekers: Birthright on Amazon. You can also order them from http://www.sabledrake.com/books.htm . And to find more on Rob's work you can go to his website: http://talyesin.com/

Enjoy!!

Creepy Reads. Take two...or three. I forget.

Its been a while since I've slung out some book recommendations so here are a few!

Gill's All Fright Diner by A. Lee Martinez

A short read but insanely hilarious. A story about a redneck vampire, a truck driving werewolf, a ghost and her ghost dog, a large kick ass woman, and many almost Lovcraftian twists and turns. Plus it shows you the true meaning of the Magic 8-Ball and why girls named Tammy are evil. Freakin' HILARIOUS! What I enjoyed most about Martinez's work is how cinematic he writes. Its very easy to visualize everything he puts out on the page. Its a very quick read and really fun.

Monster also by A. Lee Martinez

While I didn't find it quite as funny as Gill's All Fright Diner, its still pretty dang fun. Monster is the story about a guy named Monster who's job it is to collect supernatural creatures, sorta like a dog catcher in Hell. This of course leads him to meet up with Judy, a supermarket clerk and Slacker. And this leads to an almost end of the world plot involving ancient Gods and a crazy cat lady. Gill's was funner but I felt Monster had a more interesting story, really rich characters, and a fantastic world created for it. And I know I'm going to enjoy a book when it opens up with a Yeti eating everything in the Supermarket frozen foods section.

Heart Shaped Box - By Joe Hill

Now for a COMPLETELY different pace. Stac recommended this one to me and to be honest I was pretty skeptical after reading the summary. The story revolves around an aging rocker named Jude who buys a haunted suit off of Ebay. But I assure you there is SO much more than that to the story. I would say more but it would give a lot of the surprises away. Hill creates a wonderful complex character in Jude and as the story progresses you learn about him, his past and his sins. The book is haunting and bleak but with a surprisingly optimistic message. It also goes in directions that are completely unexpected. A great page turner, and one of the creepiest and frightening ghost stories I've ever read. Books don't usually scare me. Heart Shaped Box did.

Zombie CSU - By Johnathan Maberry

Johnathan Maberry is slowly becoming a favorite of mine. First with Patient Zero (which I finished and it was AWESOME!) and now with Zombie CSU which was one of the most enjoyable "nonfiction" books I've ever read. Yeah, I did say nonfiction. Let me explain. Maberry interviews experts in Forensics, Medicine, Police, Military and more to discuss how these professionals would really act in a zombie uprising. He writes each chapter like a police case file and gives some wonderful insight that we don't get from the movies. Maberry is obviously a lover of the zombie genre and his love shows through in this book. And being a zombie genre lover myself I hung on every word. Its a really unique book, well researched, and has some great supplements such as zombie quizzes, movie recommendations, and interviews with zombie authors and artists. My favorite chapter of course was on zombie pop culture. If you like the zombie genre, this is a must read.

And that's all for now! More to come when I'm able to unpack my books again!

Time-Life The Enchanted World: Ghosts

I am a legitimate, to the bone product of the 1980's. I watched Transformers and G.I Joe, He-Man, and even She-Ra though I hated her and possibly thought her twin brother was hawt. But some of the staples of my childhood in that most neon-colored of decades have been forgotten, and I am here to remind you of them, starting with a book series that my mom got: Time-Life Books "The Enchanted World" series. Anyone else remember these? Here's the commercial, to stir the blood into remembrance, as it were:





We had a ton of these; my mother is the progenitor of my morbid streak, though she's much less open about it than yours truly. I LOVED these books when I was a kid; I was about five years old or thereabouts when Mom started getting them. If I begged enough she might read pieces of it aloud to me as I played in the backyard and she worked on her tan. I started out just looking at the pictures, then eventually reading the captions and little stories told in the margins; by the time I was in high school I knew my favorites cover to cover.

For years I tried to talk Mom into letting me have them-- I doubt seriously they've been read all that much since I left home, but she would never give them to me. It's like that damn Monster Mash record, all over again.

Until I finally just found my own on eBay, my sister and I would slap the SHIT out of each other over who got this album when Mom died. We're a delightful bunch.

Most of my friends didn't remember these books at all, probably because it was a mail-away deal, not something you could just impulse buy at the local book store. Those who did usually only had Witches and Wizards, the first volume in the series. Mom has at least ten of these volumes, which was apparently unusual.

I wanted to read these books again so badly, but didn't want to pay God knows how much on eBay. Compounding the problem, I didn't know the name of the series (The Enchanted World). Doing a search online for a book called Ghosts usually ends up about how you'd imagine it would. But one day Bevin, my frequent (and often unwilling) partner in crime (as opposed to Cins, who is ALWAYS willing to shit stir) and I lucked out one day whilst shopping in Seattle. We went to Half Price Books, a store whose very existence makes me ridiculously happy, when a familiar brown cover (Magical Beasts) caught my eye as I was heading upstairs to look for more glorious girl-smut to add to my forever expanding library. The book was on the very top of a tall shelf, unnoticed for who knows how long; only reason I saw it was because it just happened to be at eye level with my head at the right angle when I was on one specific step. Between myself and Bevin (she bought Water Spirits, I bought almost all of the rest) we decimated that shelf. I got almost all of my favorites (still need Gods and Goddesses and Water Spirits) and a few other my mom doesn't have. Several of them are of a decidedly spooky bent, and perfect for this blog and the upcoming season!

My favorite as a kid was Ghosts. Simple, elegant, freaky as Hell's own gate. I would haul this out every time I had a sleep-over; great fodder for scaring the piss out of myself as well as my poor victim, usually one of my best friends, D.J. Heh. I'll have to remind her of that.

Skeleton or not, I'd still kiss him. With tongue, all lickory like! Painted by Horace Vernet.

This book is so very cool and creepy; the cover alone was enough to give myself the chills, and more than once, even as a teen, I had to put the book away when home alone because I'd unnerved myself. I self-medicated with My Little Ponies. (True fact: Cins was a My Little Pony in a former life! I was a witch.)

The book utilized a wide variety of artistic talent-- in researching this, I made some surprising discoveries. I also discovered that other than cover pictures, you can't find SHIT for these books. So I took photos; I could have scanned but eh, I'm lazy.

Click any of the pictures below for size GIGANTIC, so you can read the text on some of 'em!

This is just the flyleaf. There are three or four of them like this; how effing scary is that?! Painted by John Jude Palincar.

There's a lot of tricks like these in this book, and freaking LOVE it. Book credits this to Yvonne Gilbert.

This is one of the pictures I "hid" from; didn't like to actually look at it, as it were. Called the Ankou, a representative of Death in Bretagne (Brittany). Credited to Mark Langeneckert.

This is from the story titled as The Hooded Congregation, a story from Sweden. Scariest Christmas eeeeever. This and several other contributions in this book was done by Chris Van Allsburg, the artist who wrote and drew The Polar Express, Jumangi, and Zathura! I find it hilarious that I knew this guy's work from this; we never owned any of his children's books.

"Clattering on the staircase and howling in the hall, ghosts known as screaming skulls terrorized anyone who sought to displace them from the houses that once had been theirs." (pgs 58-9) Painted by John Jude Palencar.

This snippet is the reason my younger brother and I don't like to go near random wooden stakes in the ground. Seriously. Painted by Marshall Arisman.


Does this really need words? Painted also by Marshall Arisman.

One of my favorite ghost stories of all time, painted by Judy King Rieniets.

The Wife's Revenge; if my husband poisoned me and drove me to suicide he'd be lucky if the least he got was a haunting. Created by Kuniyoshi, a famous Japanese artist who was born in the 18th century. Old school horror!


She sees you. Everywhere. I mean EVERYWHERE. Go check under the table cloth. G'wan. Have a peek. Painted by Gary Kelley.

Remember the story of the bride who wanted to play hide and seek at her wedding reception? Yeah, they found her. Eventually. I'm gonna play trick-or-treat at my wedding reception just to see the uneasy looks on everyone's faces. Painted by Rick McCollum.

These books are pretty prevalent online for those interested in checking a few out. I love them and recommend them to everyone; you can get the whole set (all TWENTY ONE volumes) for about 150$, which breaks down to pretty minimal per book. Not bad for something that originally retailed in 1985 for 15$. A lot of people are selling the books individually, too, and your local library might have some to flip through; I know ours does.

Go forth! Read and better yourselves! Now please excuse me, this took me hours to write, I'm sure you have eye strain, and I need a shower.

New Book Bliss

I just got my copy of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies in the mail yesterday. I am five chapters in, and I think I scared the people walking past me in the Safeway parking lot; my roommate was buying breakfast and I was reading about how narrowly Mr. Darcy avoided getting his throat cut for slighting Elizabeth Bennet. And laughing. Loudly.




This book was written by Jane Austin and Seth Grahame-Smith, and is available from Amazon; based on what I've read (and the pictures I've seen, yes it's ILLUSTRATED!), you're going to want this.

Hilariously, I also own and have read the original Pride and Prejudice. And I love it; I'm a sucker for romances, particularly of the regency period. I think the story is alternately sweet and sad, and I like to imagine Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy hardcore getting their collective freaks on. In my version of events, bondage is involved. I would never have dreamed that adding zombies could make it even better.

I must go. I have reading to do.