It’s a new year and your creeping and crumbling old TombKeeper has been digging around in Count Gore’s Teetering Towers of Terror Tomes, searching for the best and most fun genre fiction for you. Look what I found this week! A great horror anthology for a great cause, and a vampire novel that’s a prize….in Count Gore’s Dungeon.

90 MINUTES TO LIVE compiled by Joel Kirkpatrick
Here is grand anthology featuring the winners of Journalstones's short story competition that required authors to include two elements in their stories, “a timed demise and a lock of hair.” Difficult? Yes! But how do you think the anthology turned out? Fabulously! These thirteen tales of horror, fantasy and science fiction for adults and young adults spans a horrifically entertaining wealth of fiction by new and established writers. The winners: John La Rue’s “Already Dead” a science fiction thriller about young woman trapped on a terrifying journey aboard a space vessel named The Hannah Lee. Second place is a horror tale from Brad Carpenter titled “Godforsaken”, a dead-on chiller that eviscerates the brain-dead innards of the Hollywood film machine. Third prize goes to Bruce Golden’s languid and startling science fiction story “Acapulco Blue”, that considers the dangers and woes of medically extended life-spans. There are ten more stories in this wide-ranging anthology, including fiction by Jeffrey Wilson, Brett J. Talley, Jasmine Cabanaw, Timothy Miller, Bill Patterson, Peter Orr, Na Yang, JG Faherty, David Perlmutter, and Jennifer Phillips. In each story, the clock is ticking and a lock of hair is essential to the plot. Genre fiction fans, rejoice: 90 MINUTES TO LIVE is a kick-ass antho! Best thing? The financial profits of this anthology will help fund the astronomical medical expenses facing the Horror Writers Association’s current president, Rocky Wood, who has been diagnosed with ALS, an incapacitating and deadly motor-neuron disease that requires extraordinary medical intervention and levels of care. This is a great anthology that benefits a great man—a total win-win for everyone involved. Click on the cover graphic. Buy a copy. Enjoy. Check it out on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/JournalStones-Warped-Words/155622811138558  

DEMON VAMPIRE by Virgil Allen Moore
This is a big novel; nearly 500 pages of vampire fiction that chronicles the adventures and misadventures of loner teen Zack Giver. High school loner Zack’s existence is already a near-vacuum when his few friends move away, making Zack a very lonely figure indeed. With his father’s encouragement, Zack breaks out of his black funk momentarily by deciding to party at a local club that he had hoped to visit with his newly departed pals. His dread-filled solo journey to the club turns out to be a dreadful excursion that leads Zack to his ultimate bleak destiny. First, encountering a young boy being bullied by a gang of other boys on the way to the club, Zack defends the boy from said bullies and ends up being badly brutalized himself. Undaunted, Zack arrives at the club beaten and wearied, where a super-hot vixen club chick comes on to him hard, becoming a pivotal figure in his life, leading him into a dark world of gloom, angst, and danger. Soon, as a traveler among the hordes darkness, Zack sinks farther down and down into himself, finding nothing but more darkness and a demon within, the violence and predation of his existence leading to little respite from his Byronesque agony. Will Zack be able to accept the moral iniquities of his existence? Embrace the carnage that is Vampyr? Included in this tome is an interview with the author by someone associated with a site called GetFanged.com, in which the author talks about the poetic nature of this novel and declares that “My vampires don’t sparkle”. Guaranteed. Grab yourself a giant bag of Cheetos and kick back for a very long, dark ride. For more about the author and his DEMON VAMPIRE series, please visit http://demongift.blogspot.com/.

 

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I’m often asked to clarify the term “horror”. As Douglas Winter famously said, “Horror isn’t a genre, it’s an emotion”, and I couldn’t agree more. There are many mainstream novels that qualify as horror, in my opinion, and I’d like to share with you a couple brain-burning debut novels that went mainstream, but are scary as hell!

THE DEAD PATH by Stephen M. Irwin
This is an absolutely stunning debut novel from Australian writer, Stephen M. Irwin, whose control of atmosphere and characterization is so tight that the entire novel seems to have been written during one white-hot sitting. And that is how I read THE DEAD PATH, the story of a haunted man who is unaware of his family’s haunted history until tragic events in his life propel him into a mission to uncover the truth about what has been happening to him. After the accidental death of his beloved wife, Nicholas Close becomes plagued with visions of the dead in which the deceased reenact their last violent moments of life, even the death of his own wife. Thinking he might be losing his mind, he returns to his childhood home in Australia, where he encounters the revenant of his childhood friend’s mysterious death in the dark woods nearby. He sees other children’s ghosts taken by an unseen…thing—over and over again. Finally confessing his visions to his sister, Nicholas uncovers a family history of unnatural powers and interests. With his normal world turned inside out, Nicholas pursues the truth about what is happening in the woods and, at the same time, delves into his family background. THE DEAD PATH pulls the reader forward inexorably into the narrative with some of the most frightening scenes I have ever read. You may never want to go into the woods again. This is brilliant horror that, once read, will remain with you forever. For more about this talented filmmaker/novelist, please visit www.stephenmirwin.com.

MR. SHIVERS by Robert Jackson Bennett
Set in the Great Depression, when hobo camps dotted the American landscape and the Dust Bowl blasted through the center of America, first novelist Robert Jackson Bennett has created a thoroughly realistic and literary period novel of supernatural horror in which a brutal predator stalks the drought-eviscerated landscape, leaving behind a trail of death and carnage. Marcus Connelly, a soft-spoken giant of a man, is devastated when his daughter is murdered by a mysterious scarred killer, Connelly forsakes his home to track down the beast who took his daughter from him. He treks across the country in search of vengeance, but the closer he gets to the scarred man, the more mysterious and terrible his quest becomes. He discovers that his daughter was not the only victim of the scarred man who is called Mr. Shivers, but so many others have suffered similar losses. Everywhere he travels, Connelly encounters the misery and deprivation of the period, and also finds that there are many who are protecting the murderer he seeks. To achieve his final goal, Connelly must kill those who are standing in his way and, the closer he gets, the more he becomes like his quarry—an unrepentant killer. Slowly, it becomes clear that the so-called Mr. Shivers may not be human at all and what humanity Connelly possesses is diminishing as he closes in on the target of his unquenchable revenge. At what point will Connelly become the evil he seeks to destroy? This is truly a road trip through unmitigated hell, and Robert Jackson Bennett has written an absolutely heart-stopping first novel. Mr. Bennett has established a very interesting blog, and you may access it at http://shufflingandmuttering.blogspot.com/.

 

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Are you rabid Halo-head, or are you a terrible gamer, like your poor old TombKeeper? Doesn’t matter, because you’ll enjoy these rip-roaring Halo-inspired novels whether you’re a top gun or a bumblefingers. I’m not sure I completely understood these novels, but I certainly did enjoy them.

HALO: GLASSLANDS by Karen Traviss
This is the first novel in a brand new trilogy set in the post-Halo 3 universe, after the chaotic warfare that saw the collapse of the Covenant that includes Earth and her colonies. Billions of humans were slaughtered, but the wars are over. Decades have passed. Is peace a possibility? Oh, hell no! Even though the war seems concluded, it’s just gone underground where the UNSC’s Office of Naval intelligence recruits Kilo Five, which is a team of ODSTs, a Spartan, and a roguish AI in attempt to reinvigorate the Sangheili insurrection. At the same time, the Arbiter, a defector who has become leader of an internally broken Covenant, but his people are on the verge of civil war. Meanwhile, in another part of the galaxy, Chief scientist Dr. Catherine Halsey, believed to have been killed on Reach, is very much alive. In creating the Spartans, she broke every law, and now she’s breaking even more to save them. Halsey is maroon in a Forerunner slipspace bubble hidden in the blasted planet Onyx with Chief Mendez and a team of Spartans. Onyx has been hiding a secret, and Dr. Halsey has found it: a wealth of Forerunner technology that will change everything. But she’d better work fast, because Kilo-five is getting close to finding her. This is fast-paced and exciting novel that will thrill gamers and sf readers.

 

HALO: PRIMORDIUM: BOOK TWO OF THE FORERUNNER SERIES by Greg Bear
Hugo and Nebula Award winner Greg Bear has written a whoa-Nelly, hold-to-your-hat second novel in his Forerunner Saga (the first installment was titled CRYPTUM), which continues the story of the creators and builders of the Halos. The Forerunner empire has apparently self-destructed and, in the wake of implosion, two humans named Chakas and Riser find themselves on a bizarre world where the horizons right up into the skies. This is the epic story of their struggle to traverse this broken Halo. Their journey takes them into the dangerous realm of a terrible and powerful intelligence claiming to be the very last Precursor. But this intelligence has warped and perverted the Master Builder’s original and awful research into the Flood. Riser and Chakas discover that they have become pawns in a deadly and ancient vengeance match by the unimaginably powerful entities that seeded the galaxy with life and the Forerunners, who have pledged to protect and preserve all living things. You don’t need an X-Box to enjoy this cunning and spectacular novel by an acknowledged master of science fiction.

 

 

 

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We’re chasing away the Sugar Plum Fairy with terrifying tales of horror this week, TombRats. I’ve got a top-notch terror novel and a perfectly horrifying collection of stories that will make any remaining holiday spirits scream and run away until next year.

THE CORN MAIDEN AND OTHER NIGHTMARES by Joyce Carol Oates
I must confess that Joyce Carol Oates is one of my favorite writers, and I have read nearly every word she has ever written. In an incredible canon of fine literature that includes novels, short story collections, essays, and nonfiction, THE CORN MAIDEN AND OTHER NIGHTMARES is as fine a collection of single author short fiction as I have ever read. These seven tales of terror rattled me to the bone and left me breathless. The opening title novella, “The Corn Maiden”, is a brain-searing investigation into a lost latch-key child that focuses upon the guilt-ridden mother, a part-time male teacher, and a trio of mean-girl fellow students. A pair of stories about twisted rival twins, a tale of a newly windowed woman who takes up with a disabled man, and an aging womanizer who takes his penchant for the ladies one step too far are some of the creepiest tales this author has ever penned. The final story in the collection concerns a cosmetic surgeon facing financial problems whose entanglement with a wealthy and extremely vain patient could solve his money problems…or become is utter undoing. These are lushly written tales of bleakness and human frailty that leave the reader rocked to the core and emotionally flayed. With THE CORN MAIDEN AND OTHER NIGHTMARES, Ms. Oates once again proves that she is one of the world’s finest living writers.

THE GERMAN by Lee Thomas
This is a thoughtful and beautifully written novel of atmospheric terror set in the paranoiac height of World War Two, when Japanese Americans were locked up in American internment camps and anyone who did not specifically fit the The All-American Profile was suspect and shunned. A quiet man named Ernst, a former German soldier and Nazi party leader, has renounced his former brutality and has come to a whole-hearted support of pacifistic ideals after witnesses the atrocities inflicted by his countrymen. But Ernst is a haunted man who cannot throw off the memories of his sadistic past, the men he used his position of power to seduce, and the terrible violence he once embraced. Ernst fled Germany in 1934 and came to reside in a small Texas town in America, hoping for peace and obscurity. When the ravaged bodies of young boys begin to surface in the Texas town where Ernst has chosen to live, the only clues to the killer are tiny painted snuff boxes containing notes written in the German language. As the townspeople focus on the quiet German man in their midst, town sheriff Tom Rabbit investigates the German immigrant, Ernst Lang, whose terrible past might have made him into a serial killer. A trio of narrators--the naïve sheriff, a teen boy, and a former subordinate of the monster who led The Night of the Long Knives in Germany—tell the tale of THE GERMAN, which builds from quiet opening chapters into a horrifying cataclysm of small-town paranoia and homophobia. For more about the author, please visit www.leethomasauthor.com.

 

Don't miss my TOP 10 PICKS for 2011 in The Library!

 

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As the holidays approach, your TombKeeper wants nothing more than to escape the Sugar Plum Fairy and her happy little cohorts! Gah! Therefore, TombRats, we’re blasting off to science fictional realms far, far from Santa and company, so strap on your helmets and zero-G boots. Ready? Three…two…one…

THE CHRONOLITHS by Robert Charles Wilson
Tor Book’s Orb Trade Paperbacks has reprinted Robert Charles Wilson’s thrilling John W. Campbell Award winning novel, the CHRONOLITHS, hurray! The Hugo Award winning author has become one of my favorite science fiction writers, creating worlds of believable and scientifically authentic fiction filled with memorable characters and bursting with action. Scott Warden is a 21st century man haunted by the emotional demons of his abusive past. He forces his wife and daughter to accompany him from the United States to Thailand when he accepts a temporary programming position, but when the job comes to an end, his family edges toward poverty, for all purposes stranded in a country where they feel like aliens. Leaving his family to fend for themselves, Scott backpacks into the wilds of Thailand to witness the violent descent of a huge monolith that plummets into the deep jungle, sent back from 20 years in the future. The monolith, dubbed a Chronolith, is a super-tech monument that commemorates the victory of conquering Asian tyrant named Kuin. The monument crushes a full acre forest when its base crashes to Earth, and it only the beginning. Soon after, another monument crushes Bangkok, and its appearance is followed by many more all over the world. Scott discovers that his family has fled Thailand, but Scott is intent on finding out how to fight the future and derail Kuin’s ascent to power and destruction. Brilliantly imagined and magnificently wrought, THE CHRONOLITHS was a 2002 award winning science fiction novel that has earned it status as a modern SF classic.

STATIONS OF THE TIDE by Michael Swanwick
Michael Swanwick writes mind-blowing, edgy science fiction with a dark fantasy edge filled with quirky, believable characters and tight plots that keep the reader riveted until the final page. STATIONS OF THE TIDE won a coveted Nebula Award for Best Novel, and deservedly so. Every two centuries, the planet Miranda (hello, Serenity fans!) faces a world-wide cataclysm when its oceanic tides engulf and submerge all continents, destroying everything terrestrial. The advent of Jubilee Tides, as they are called, is approaching, and there are even darker fortunes spreading across Miranda, which is a world of shadowy magic, conjurers, and shape-changers. Before the killing tides arrive, a bureaucrat is sent from The Bureau of Proscribed Technologies to investigate a renegade scientist/wizard who plans to restructure Miranda with dark magic and forbidden technologies. Reminiscent of Conrad’s HEART OF DARKNESS, the nameless bureaucrat enters the dark jungles of Miranda in search of the traitorous Gregorian, but encounters darkness far blacker than he could have imagined at the beginning of his journey. Brilliant, thrilling, horrifying and thought-provoking, STATIONS OF THE TIDE was most deserving of the Nebula Award it garnered for Best Novel of 1991.

 

 

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It’s getting steamy down here in the Tomb. Steampunky, I suppose I should say. Who’s ready for some cool science fictional alternative history Victorian fun from author George Mann?

THE OSIRIS RITUAL by George Mann
Author George Mann made a splash with his steampunk novel THE AFFINITY BRIDGE, and Queen Victoria’s sleuthing team of Sir Maurice Newbury and his fabulously attractive and brainy female assistant, Veronica Hobbes. During their last adventure, Newbury and Hobbes defeated zombies and killer automatons, and now the Queen has another job for the highly favored Hobbes. The year is 1902, and the public is astir due to the arrival of a freshly excavated Egyptian mummy making its way to London for a gala exhibition. But something is not right with this mummy—the sarcophagus is inscribed with unusual inscription and decorated in extraordinary colors. Newbury is on hand when the mummy is unwrapped, and when the final wrapping falls, the skeleton beneath begins screaming in rage—much to the surprise of everyone in attendance. Something supernatural is afoot, and soon the leader of the expedition who discovered the screaming mummy is murdered. It falls to Newbury and Hobbes to find the murderer and clues to the mystery of the bizarre mummy, and soon London is filled with murdered bodies. Action-packed and viscerally entertaining, THE OSIRIS RITUAL will appeal to fans of horror, mystery and anyone who enjoyed the recent Sherlock Holmes films.

 

THE IMMORALITY ENGINE by George Mann
After having solved some nearly impossible mysteries for her Majesty the Queen, Victoria, Sir Maurice Newbury and his brilliant assistant, Miss Veronica Hobbes, should be living the high life. Well, at least Newbury is—his dabbling with opium is becoming a problem. His addiction becomes quite serious when he discovers that Hobbes has been involved in secretive meetings with the Queen. Is it the opium that is making Newbury paranoid, or is Hobbes involved in some sort of betrayal? Hobbes’ attention has been diverted to the care of her sick sister, so she has not noticed that Newbury’s opium addiction is becoming critical. Also, Chief Investigator Bainbridge, a close friend and colleague of Newbury and Hobbes, is covering for Newbury’s escalating drug problem, but when the body of an infamous criminal is found, Bainbridge and Hobbes track down Newbury at a local opium den to help them with their investigation. Soon after the discovery of the criminal’s body, crimes that eerily coincide with the dead man’s M.O. begin occurring. Could it be a copycat criminal or is something more nefarious happening? And what is going on with Hobbes and Queen Victoria? Newbury must pull himself together to help solve this exciting mystery set in the clockwork, gas-lit alternative Victorian era. Let the games begin!

 

 

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