Jeff Strand's Blog, page 43
January 27, 2018
Craaaaazy Deal!
Whoa! Golly! Jeez! What a deal! Five thriller authors (me, JA Konrath, Jeff Menapace, Susan May, and Willow Rose) have put their Kindle box sets on sale for 99 cents each!
Get the four-book Andrew Mayhem collection for less than a buck! That’s like 24 1/4 cents each!
This is pure insanity and must be stopped! Don’t click the link. If you do, you’re taking advantage of their momentary lapse of reason. http://bit.ly/18-horror-ebooks
January 26, 2018
Creative Loafing
Hey, I was interviewed by Creative Loafing Tampa! No, I don’t live in Tampa anymore, but they knew that when they sent the interview request! Check it out right HERE.
January 25, 2018
Yum
That’s right, I’m the meat in a Stephen King/Neil Gaiman sandwich!
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Upcoming Newsletter
A bonus issue of my newsletter goes out on Saturday, with the new story “The Most Entertaining Man in the Elevator.” Subscribe here: http://eepurl.com/bpv5br
January 24, 2018
RIP Jack Ketchum
When I was in high school, I was an avid reader of the magazine Deep Red. In one issue, they gave a passionate recommendation for the novel Off Season by Jack Ketchum, supposedly the most intense, brutal horror novel ever written.
I had to read it. So I immediately downloaded a copy to my Kindle, and—
No, wait. This was the late ’80s. No internet. What I did was search used bookstores for a copy. For years. Every time I went into a bookstore, which was often, I tried with no success to find Off Season.
In college, I had a long bus ride home for Christmas, and the Greyhound station had a used bookstore right next to it…and there it was! Off Season! Holy crap! Not only had I found the book that had eluded me all this time, but I found it just as I had a few hours of uninterrupted reading time.
Well, almost. The sun was going to set soon. There were no reading lights on the bus, and I didn’t have a flashlight, so reading Off Season became an exercise in tearing through it as quickly as possible before I couldn’t see the words. I didn’t make it. I tried reading it in sudden bursts as we passed street lamps, but ultimately I had to finish it at home.
The book completely lived up to the Deep Red hype.
I’d eventually locate some of his other books (Hide and Seek, Cover, and the sequel Offspring when it was first published), though Off Season remained my favorite. In 1995, as a completely unpublished author, I went to the World Horror Convention, where Jack Ketchum (real name: Dallas Mayr) was an attendee. I was invited to go to lunch with a few people, but turned them down because Jack Ketchum was on the next panel discussion, and also suggested that they were crazy to miss it. Fools.
On that panel, which I think was “Realism in Horror,” somebody from the audience brought up The Girl Next Door, saying it was the most disturbing book they’d ever read. There was a murmur of agreement from everybody. He talked about the book for a while, including the infamous skeleton cheerleader cover, which basically made this horrific, unbearably dark tale look like a fun YA romp.
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Obviously, I had to read this one, too. John McIlveen sent me a copy, and…yeah. This beautifully written novel doesn’t have the over-the-top gore of Off Season, but it’s a devastating kick to the teeth unlike anything I’d read before or since. This book hurts you. It remains one of the greatest books in the horror—or any—genre, though I probably wouldn’t recommend it as a starting place…
I met him in person in 2005, and he asked to see some of my work, so I sent him the Andrew Mayhem novels. To my surprise, he actually read them, and to my delight, he said he loved them. He would eventually give me a couple of great blurbs (“Jeff Strand is a funny, deeply disturbed individual.” – Jack Ketchum).
Ironically, he was a big fan of my horror/comedy and didn’t think I should be doing the “serious” horror like Pressure. (Though his blurb for Pressure said that Richard Laymon would have loved it. When Jack Ketchum says on the record that Richard Laymon would have loved your book, you freak the hell out. It’s the law.) He even e-mailed our editor at Leisure Books to tell him that he should be publishing my comedic work.
He thought I wussed out in one part of Casket For Sale (Only Used Once), and for that I apologize.
Sometimes people ask when you feel you’ve truly made it, and the answer is “I don’t. I mean, look at me. Duh.” That said, I was at a convention not too long ago, and I was walking down the hallway, and he was walking in the opposite direction. “Hey, Jeff.” “Hey, Dallas.” We passed each other and continued on our way. And a moment later I thought: Oh my God! I can casually greet Jack Freakin’ Ketchum in the hallway and continue on like it’s no big deal!
His book Stranglehold is one of his tamer offerings but has an ending that packs a punch to the gut that rivals The Girl Next Door. Which is pretty much how I felt when I saw the news on Facebook that he’d died. He’s not my first literary hero to die. He’s not my first friend to die. But I think he was the first to be both.
Most authors would love to have one of their novels become an inarguable and iconic genre classic. Jack Ketchum has two of them. RIP.
January 24
I saw this guy accidentally drive away from the pump with the fuel nozzle still in his car. The hose just popped right off, like there was a safety feature for this kind of thing. No spraying gas. No explosion. Very disappointing.
In better news, by the end of the day I should be one-third done with Bring Her Back.
January 22, 2018
Be Like Sue
This is Sue. Sue loves books.
SUE: Hi!
In fact, Sue just read a book that she really enjoyed.
SUE: SICK HOUSE was swell!
Because Sue read the book through legal means, she knows that she doesn’t owe the author a damn thing.
SUE: My conscience is clear!
Sue doesn’t care about things like “Amazon algorithms,” so she doesn’t know that when she leaves a review she’s doing her part to boost the visibility of this spoooooky novel.
SUE: I am?
It’s true, Sue! Your reviews are a crucial component of the success of a book like SICK HOUSE. One review can’t do it alone, but when lots of people write them, why, the author can focus on writing another entertaining novel without being distracted as much by the looming specter of financial ruin.
SUE: Wow. I didn’t know that I could play such an important role. Should I also write reviews of books I haven’t read?
No, no, no. People can see right through that nonsense. We’re not trying to game the system here.
BOB: I thought SICK HOUSE was garbage. Should I review it as well?
Burn in hell, Bob.
SUE: Well, I’m on my way to http://mybook.to/SickHouse to leave my review right now! And then I’ll review enjoyable books by other authors as well! I never knew it meant so much!
Thanks, Sue!
January 19, 2018
January 2018 Newsletter
Yesterday I sent out the January issue of my newsletter. It’s got information about Sick House, of course. As always, it includes a brand-new, exclusive short story. This time it’s “A Real Haunting.”
You can read the newsletter online by clicking HERE. If you want the convenience of having it sent to your e-mail, the upper left corner of the online version has a “Subscribe” button.
January 18, 2018
SICK HOUSE Available Now!
The Kindle edition of my newest (and scariest) novel is now available! Get it right HERE.
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It’s a home invasion from beyond the grave in this novel of unrelenting terror from the Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of PRESSURE, DWELLER, and WOLF HUNT.
It doesn’t seem like the perfect house, but screw it, it’s good enough to rent for a year. Unfortunately for Boyd, Adeline, and their two young daughters, it’s immediately clear that they chose the wrong place.
The nightmare begins with violent coughs and headaches. Food starts to rot almost as soon as they take it inside. A pet tarantula goes missing. Some family members begin to exhibit creepy behavior.
Then the ghosts arrive, and all Hell breaks loose…
January 17, 2018
Welcome to Gleefully Macabre!
[image error]Welcome to my website! Whether you were brought here by interest in my work or a Google search gone terribly wrong, I encourage you to hang around and start clicking away!
My new novel, Sick House, is available now in a Kindle edition.
My new novella, An Apocalypse of Our Own, is also available now in a Kindle edition.
And my new short story collection, Everything Has Teeth, is now out in, yes, a Kindle edition!
(P.S.: People who leave reviews on Amazon deserve great big hugs!)
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