Hey, TombRats! I'm going to leave you with some fabulous reading to make up for the fact that I was at the Horrorfind convention with the Creature Feature gang last week. And what a treasure trove of reading I have for YOU!

MATHESON UNCOLLECTED VOL. 1 by Richard Matheson
It's little wonder that Richard Matheson is considered a living legend. His works helped to define my generation, and his words encompassed the very world in which I have lived. Indeed, there is hardly an American living today who has not been touched in some way by Mr. Matheson's imagination. This, the first of two volumes collecting previously uncollected works from the huge canon of Mr. Matheson's career, illustrates the breathtaking breadth of his vision and talent. Matheson historian and expert Tony Albarella introduces the actual teleplay that produced one the most famous classic Star Trek episodes, "The Enemy Within". When the Starship Enterprise experiences a transporter malfunction, intrepid Captain Kirk is literally split in two, becoming disjointed personalities reflecting opposite sides of Kirk's personality. Next up is a prescient unfinished science fiction novel written during the atomic 1950's, COLONY SEVEN, in which Mr. Matheson describes an overpopulated world in crisis due to man-made ecological impoverishment and our subsequent flight from a dying world into space. Also included are ten short stories that range from whimsical fantasy to white-knuckle terror to pure science fiction. My favorite: "Counterfeit Bills", a hilariously terse tragicomedy with a killer final line. Opened by a heartfelt introduction by Matheson contemporary, George Clayton Johnson, this is a collection that fans of grand fantasy and science fiction literature will not want to miss. AND, those of you who order the Lettered Edition from Gauntlet Press will receive a bonus extra, the script adaptation of Mr. Matheson's short story, "No Such Thing as a Vampire"! You'd better act fast, though, because these books are going to get snapped up fast. I have my copy, have you ordered yours?

And now, TombRats, here's your Horrorfind Weekend bonus reading: a sizzling summer six-pack of poetry and prose from my favorite small press poetry publisher, Sam's Dot! Each of these selections clock in at under 100 pages and are small enough for backpack or pocketbook--perfect take-along literature for travel or vacation. These mighty little volumes are packed with thrills aplenty, and here are my mini-reviews of this magnificent half-dozen!

CHRISTINA’S WORLD by Marge B. Simon
One of the most famous paintings in the world is Andrew Wyeth's "Christina's World", which at first glance seems to be an idyllic portrait of a young girl sitting in the grass. Upon closer inspection, the child's arm appears misshapen. The truth is that Christina was a poor, rural girl who was unable to walk, and had to drag herself from place to place. It is that chill of perception that lurks on every page of writer-poet-illustrator Marge Simon's mind-bending collection of flash fiction that devotes itself to unsettling the reader. Brilliantly spare, these stories spark the imagination like dark dreams upon waking. Beautiful full color illustrations by the author throughout.


DRAGON SOUP by Marge Simon & Mary Turzillo
It's a lucky child indeed who possesses a copy of this delightful volume of fantastical poetry and prose about the most fantastical beasts of all: dragons! You'll find scary dragons, sweet dragons, funny dragons and even artistic dragons in these pages, along with tips on how to tell if your dragon is in love; i.e., "When your male dragon asks, 'Did the earth move for you?' everybody in the valley screams, 'Yes!' Wonderful entertainment for dragon lovers of all ages. Whimsical illustrations by Marge Simon.

THE PHANTOM WORLD by Gary William Crawford
Enter a haunted world glimpsed only peripherally in these bleak Gothic poems that explore the darkest edges of human existence. Scathing and shivery, these poems plumb the subterranean depths of that lurk everywhere, unnoticed. Beautifully disturbing illustrations by Marge Simon.

TARANTULA STAMPEDE by Tom Galusha
The covers of this 84-page volume contain one of the widest (and wildest!) ranges of subject matter I've ever read in one book. Author Tom Galusha imagines stampeding arachnids, Sherlock Holmes's vampire encounter, the arcane uses of the common werewolf, science lab horrors, lunar ghost towns and more. Mind-bending weirdness beautifully wrought!

EWAIPANOMA by Mary Turzillo
What happens when space aliens invade Elizabethan England? Why, romance, of course! This is one of the strangest, most compelling and wholly believable tales I've ever encountered. Ms. Turzillo has condensed a terrifically involving epic into 51 enthralling pages. Brava! Cover illustration by Marge Simon.

FAMILY TRADITION by Dev Jarrett
This is a darkly hilarious tale of one of life's most trying experiences: meeting the in-laws. Poor Wes. He's nervous enough to begin with, but the family group he encounters is a backwoods nightmare that make the "heeere piggy" antagonists of Deliverance seem like stand-up dudes. What exactly is wrong with his fiancé's family? Oh, he doesn't want to know… But needs to know. Before it's too late. Horrifically twisted and outrageously entertaining! Cover illustration by the talented and beautiful Marge Simon.

Gather 'round, TombRats, because your grisly and grungy old TombKeeper has something naughty to show you this week. We're going to enjoy two illustrated books that are so much fun I'm surprised they've not been banned. Shhhhh, let's keep these grotesque little gems to ourselves so that the Book Police won't think we're enjoying ourselves too much, okay?

UNPLEASANT WAYS TO DIE by Elan Fleisher
If you're longing for some twisted, nihilistic fun of questionable taste (my favorite!) you'll love this bizarre little illustrated compendium of some extremely unpleasant methods of shuffling off this mortal coil, including bicycling into the back of a bus, becoming the pot-bound entree in a cannibal's dinner, a long cable car plummet, rural accidents and more, um, freakish departures. Fleisher's funny cartoons made your old TombKeeper's usual facial rictus stretch into something approximating a--gasp--smile! Death can be very silly and, if you are a fan of reruns of television shows like Dead Like Me and Six Feet Under, this one will have you giggling all the way to the morgue. Gruesome good fun for darkly inclined TombRats everywhere. Yum, yum--don't forget to buy a giant bag of Cheetos to munch one while you read! Note: this volume is out of print, but click on the cover--Amazon.com has sources where you can buy it cheap! Don't miss it!

CREEPY SUSIE AND 13 OTHER TRAGIC TALES FOR TROUBLED CHILDREN by Angus Oblong
Poor little Susie--she's pretty creepy all right, and so are the rest of these funny, tragicomic tales of woe and hilarity. Try "Mary Had a Little Chainsaw", or "Milo's Disorder". Endeavor in vain not to guffaw when you read "Rosie's Crazy Mother" and "Emily Amputee". Wildly illustrated, these tales are most definitely not for the politically correct, easily offended or timid reader--my oh my, NO! Beware! There's something in this collection of stories to offend just about everyone, and it is one of the most twisted titles I've ever found down here in the Tomb. Bleakly funny fare for gnarly minds like mine. Don't say I didn't warn you! Don't leave this one on Grandma's night stand, yikes!

is week, TombRats, my constant excavations of Count Gore's Teetering Towers of Terror Tomes yielded a mother lode of great horror fiction from two of the greatest voices in horror fiction…ever! Please join me in tearing into the plunder…

THE GRIN OF THE DARK by Ramsey Campbell
My collection of Ramsey Campbell books are a raggedy mess, flecked with mustard, wavy from spilled beverages, soiled, bent, dog-eared, and generally in despicable condition. Why? Because once I've read the first paragraph, I drag these books around with me everywhere, reading while I eat, bathe, travel, wait on line, whatever. Once begun, a Ramsey Campbell novel or short story collection is bloody unputdownable. Case in point: THE GRIN OF THE DARK, Mr. Campbell's brand new excursion into the darkest subterranean echoes of human existence. It is a dark eye, indeed, that has been turned toward one Simon Lester, a formerly distinguished film critic who has worked as a gas station attendant since his publisher went out of business. It is little wonder that Simon leaps at an offer to write a book about the mysterious career and disappearance of silent film star Tubby Thackeray, a comic wild man as popular as Chaplin whose bright star was extinguished by censorship and an audience member who died of laughter--literally. Simon's enthusiastic quest to redeem his own career quickly plunges into nightmare country. It seems that virtually every historic archival film and document about Tubby Thackeray has been expunged from the records. Simon discovers information about the possible existence of an arcane videocassette clip of Tubby and his chase leads him to the Internet, which leads him to a person with the knowledge he seeks, but a person of possibly harmful intent. Soon he finds himself spiraling down into a hallucinatory state in which he sees bloated, grinning clown faces wherever he goes. Strange, horrific delusions and circumstances envelop his life, threatening to ruin his relationship with his beautiful girlfriend, Natalie. Too late, Simon realizes that Tubby Thackeray was far more than a film star. THE GRIN OF THE DARK is one of Ramsey Campbell's most richly imagined, deeply disturbing and beautifully written novels, quite a feat for an author who has already garnered more awards than any other living horror writer. I love Ramsey Campbell's books. To pieces!


AVENGING FURY by John Farris
Remember John Farris's blockbuster 1976 paranormal thriller novel, THE FURY? It was about telekinetic teens pursued by a creepy government operative with plans to harness their amazing powers, turning them into weapons of mass destruction. And then came Brian De Palma's 1978 blockbuster film of the same title (you can get it at Netflix if you haven't seen it). THE FURY was followed by two more sequential novels, THE FURY AND THE TERROR and THE FURY AND THE POWER. Now, thirty years later, the conclusion of this epic tale has finally been published, and it's a doozy! I don't want to give too much away for readers who've not yet caught up with the three novels that came before, but I will tell you that AVENGING FURY is a powerful and stunning grand finale to a series that has held me spellbound from the get-go. Worlds are set to collide, an age of darkness approaches, and only one being--an Avatar named Eden--possesses astonishing psychic abilities powerful enough to battle the malignant forces gathering for the final, heart-stopping battle between good and evil. Eden's doppelganger, Gwen, travels across time to keep a former conquered adversary powerless, but finds that a particularly heinous entity is already waiting for her, while Eden is stuck in the present, fighting for her life. The stage is set, and the final war is destined to take place in Las Vegas, Nevada, which is a battle scene that you will never forget. Whew! I'm sorry the FURY series is finally over, but, if you haven't read it yet, it's going to be a mind-bending adventure. And, if you've kept up with the series all along, just wait'll you read the final installment! It's no wonder that Stephen King declared that John Farris is "America's premiere novelist of terror." Click on the cover graphic and grab yourself some major thrills.

NOTE: Be sure to join me upstairs in the Creature Feature Vault, where I have Mr. Malfi trapped and talking on videotape!

Look what I've excavated from Count Gore's Teetering Tower of Terror Tomes for you tonight, TombRats! Here is a pair of truly scary, well-crafted and thrilling tales of terror. I know you're ready, so dig in!

THE FALL OF NEVER by Ronald Damien Malfi
This is a voluptuously written, atmospheric fever dream of a novel that embraces the reader with a claustrophobic Gothic chill. Video documentarian Kelly Rich has found a rewarding and busy life in New York City, where she is presently interviewing an elderly paraplegic woman named Nellie Worthridge. All seems to be going well until Kelly begins to hear strange voices emanating from the raw footage, and she sees figures appear on scenes where only Nellie had been taped. These bizarre sounds and images arouse strange, fragmentary memories of her upstate New York childhood. When Kelly's sister is nearly killed in the woods adjoining the family estate, Kelly is called back to the dark, cloistered town of Spires. Most of Kelly's early memories have been long buried in her fragile psyche, particularly those leading up to and including the years spent in a mental asylum after having been committed by her parents. As her memories begin to return, the fragmentary past begins to come together with terrifying results. Kelly's return to Spires is a spooky puzzle box of secrets, a thrilling haunted house story, and a fine mystery laced with moments of high terror. For more about this author, please visit his website at www.ronmalfi.com



BESTIAL: WEREWOLF APOCALYPSE by William D. Carl
When I was a kid, there was always an argument about which monster was scarier, the mummy or the werewolf. Okay, the mummy looks scary, but it's slow and dissolves in water, right? A werewolf, I have always asserted, is the ultimate killing machine--cunning, feral, bloodthirsty, and very, very fast on its feet. If it wants to kill you, most likely it will. BESTIAL captures the quintessential werewolf vibe: chaos, savagery, ripping claws and fangs, death of the most gruesome sort. The city of Cincinnati goes down hard when a full moon transforms the populace into ferocious monsters that shred and devour anything in their paths. Only four humans in the entire city are immune to werewolf transformation; a thief, a bank teller, a housewife, and a teenage runaway. This unlikely quartet must band together to stay alive, to discover why they are unaffected and, somehow, they've got to stop the apocalypse. When the sun rises, the werewolves return to human form, but sundown is coming on fast. This is an explicitly horrific, hang-on-to-your-effin-hat, cruise missile of a monster novel custom built for hardcore horror readers. Oh, bloody yeah! Werewolf mayhem rules! AAAAOOROOO!

How do you feel about time-travel, TombRats? Come join me for a trippy ride back to a stellar year for horror fiction, back to the days when the late Ronald Reagan was president, Iran Contra was the current political scandal, Platoon won the academy award for Best Picture, and these two landmark horror novels were first published. Haul out your power suits and hair gel, everybody; it's 1987!

LIVE GIRLS by Ray Garton
This was one of the first novels to haul vampire fiction out of crumbling castles of yore and into gritty urban nightscapes. LIVE GIRLS rocked the foundations of vampire fiction and was one of the most talked about and collected horror novels of its time, and here's a newly printed reissue of the original freakout that turned the horror community on its collective ear, hooray! Set in the infamously seedy, neon-splattered 1980s skin strip that New York City's Time Square once was, hookers and porn joints ruled. When Davey Owen finds himself sans female companionship and very, uh...lonely, he decides he could use a little downtown entertainment. When he spots a blinking neon sign advertising "Live Girls," he embarks upon a wild ride that will take him to dizzying heights of ecstasy and depraved depths of horror beyond his most feverish fantasies. The girls at the strip club are very beautiful, extraordinarily pale and--it turns out--lethal. Davey becomes infatuated with a lovely, pale, sexually uninhibited woman who gives him exactly what he's looking for, and more. She's a vampire, you see, and she wants to bite Davey and suck his blood--but I'm not talking neck area, if you catch my drift. This is an extremely explicit novel replete with sex and violence that contains a particular--and still quite shocking--scene that caused Internet message boards to erupt (such as they were able) back in the day. "It's disgusting!" "It's obscene!" "It should be banned!" And those were some of the kinder comments from nay sayers who were horrified by the novel. (Well, yeah! It's a horror novel!) It was a polarizing moment in the history of horror fiction, with equally divided and vitriolic camps. Ray Garton Good. Ray Garton Bad. It went on and on ad nauseum--while the novel kept flying off the bookstore shelves. My thoughts about it? Bring it on! I loved it then and I love it now. Ray Garton (who received the Grand Master Award at the World Horror Convention this past May) rocks! If you think you can handle LIVE GIRLS, click on the cover. I double-dog spit-in-the-dirt dare you.

RAPTURE by Thomas Tessier
Leisure is also reissuing this mesmerizing 1987 horror novel by one of my very favorite authors, the brilliant Thomas Tessier. This winner of the International Horror Guild Award is one of the few writers whose books will actually send me screaming out into the world and through the doors of a bookstore with cash in my crusty fist. Mr. Tessier's languidly sensual and erotic tales of terror gently entwine themselves around the reader's imagination, drawing us ever deeper into the inescapable horrors that confront us, page by page. I can recall each of his novels as if I'd read them just last week even though decades may have passed, and how many books can you say that about? If you are a Tessier fan, I know you'll want to read RAPTURE again and, if you are new to Mr. Tessier's work, this is a great place to become a fan. RAPTURE is one of his non-supernatural novels, but it's every bit as scary as, say, his stunning werewolf novel, NIGHTWALKER (be sure to get that one, too--it's great!). In RAPTURE, a young and very successful software developer named Jeff seems, on the surface, in total control of himself and his world. But there's something missing in Jeff, a bleak and yawning inner void. That void becomes filled when he fixates upon an old high school friend, Georgianne. She's happily married with a teenaged daughter, a full life and absolutely no interest in Jeff past a casual, old-high-school-chum friendship, but that doesn't matter to Jeff. He wants her. He needs her. And he aims to have her. Even if that means he has to kill everyone else in Georgianne's life until there's no one left for her...but him. This is an excruciatingly suspenseful novel that only Thomas Tessier could have written. It is a bleak, believable and masterful tale of psychosexual obsession that pulls the wire of suspense so tight that you can almost hear it shriek (but that'll be you). Click on the cover and let the shrieking begin!

I've got a pair of fast-moving, full-tilt horror novels for you this week, TombRats! The first one is a supernatural thriller from a new master of terror, and the second is from an old master of the horrifying gross-out. Ready? Let's go!

TOWER HILL by Sarah Pinborough
I have become an avowed fan of Ms. Pinborough's work, and eagerly await her new novels for review. She possesses an extraordinary ability to instill a sense of unease that builds throughout her novels, drawing the reader along in breathless anticipation from first page to last. In her newest novel, the town of Tower Hill, Maine sits brooding over the world below, situated on shadowy high cliffs where a centuries-old church and a small private college overlook a rocky New England coastline. A charming priest and a handsome young professor new to Tower Hill might not be all they seem. Ancient artifacts lie hidden in Tower Hill and, once discovered, the finders become less and less human as they fall under the evil powers of the artifacts they have risked everything to find. When the evil is unleashed, it spreads outward, enveloping the college where students begin to mutilate and destroy themselves, becoming puppets of the unholy malevolence that has lain dormant for untold ages. Two college students, Liz and Steve, come to realize that the hideous deaths occurring in Tower Hill are due to supernatural origins, and it becomes their quest to find and destroy the source of the horrors before they, too, are claimed by the invasive evil that has seized Tower Hill. This is a spooky, elegantly graphic and satisfying excursion into small-town supernatural horror written by a talented author whose novels have been consistently excellent. Take a copy of TOWER HILL along on vacation this year--it will put a chill on the hottest summer day.

THE WOODS ARE DARK by Richard Laymon
This novel by the late, great Richard Laymon was originally published in 1981, but in a heavily expurgated form that excised nearly fifty pages of scenes thought to be too graphic for public consumption. Well. THE WOODS ARE DARK is baaaack, completely restored to its original gut-churning entirety. This is a classic Laymon hack-em-up that begins with two young women on a hiking trip encountering a hairy, legless monster that tosses a detached human body part at them. Turns out that the thing is one of a group that finds it entertaining and edifying to kidnap, rape, torture, mutilate and dismember strangers who venture into their woodlands. Extreme graphic violence and gore fill nearly every page of this novel, but this is definitely not trash horror. Mr. Laymon was one of horror's superstars who produced a huge canon of carnal and graphically horrific tales that are always entertaining, filled with interesting characters, cleverly plotted and delightfully written. Go figure. So, if you have a strong constitution (and stomach) and enjoy your horror raw on the bone, you'll love this grossifying, hurl-your-Cheetos thrill ride. THE WOODS ARE DARK is not a novel for the rainbows 'n' unicorn crowd, the kiddies or the faint of heart. And please, don't take this book with you on a hiking trip in the woods unless you plan to hole up in a triple-locked motel room for the duration. Enough said.