Orrin Grey's Blog: Shovel Murders & Monologues, page 34

The Lesser Swamp Gods of Little Dixie

I’m pretty new to the notion of being a big enough deal that anyone would even think that a blurb from me would go any distance toward helping sell their book (and probably still a long ways off from that actually being true). The first book I was ever asked to provide a blurb for was an odd choice, a fascinating nonfiction tome on the confluence of Lovecraft and actual occult practices called, reasonably enough, H.P. Lovecraft and the Black Magickal Tradition. I liked it, and said so, though I imagine that my poor blurb was overshadowed by praise from such luminaries as Cherie Priest, Nick Mamatas, and Richard Gavin, to name a few.

More recently, Jonathan Raab, publisher and proprietor of Muzzleland Press and my co-conspirator on the occasional Creature Feature Conversation, asked me to read his latest novella, The Lesser Swamp Gods of Little Dixie. I was happy to do it, and once again I was happy to provide a blurb, though honestly, between that title and that cover, I doubt most readers of this blog need me to say anything in order to convince them to pick it up. If you do need a little extra push, though, here’s what I had to say about Mr. Raab’s delightful little book:

“It’s all-too-easy for fun stories to sound brainless, or for smart stories to come off as dry. With The Lesser Swamp Gods of Little Dixie, Jonathan Raab walks that tightrope, keeping the humor sharp, the action pulpy, the stakes human, and the weirdness weird, without ever stumbling on one side or the other. A rare gift indeed.”

You don’t have to take my word for it, though. There’s also a glowing recommendation from no less a figure in weird fiction than Christopher Slatsky, whose debut collection Alectryomancer and Other Weird Tales I have on my shelf but haven’t yet gotten the chance to read. Plus, the whole thing’s only $8, and, let’s be honest, you’d probably just waste that money anyway…

Accidental NaNoWriMo

As I warned earlier, you haven’t heard a lot from me this month, because I’ve been engaged in hammering on a novel-length work-for-hire project that I, unfortunately, can’t say much about just yet. But I hit enough of a milestone on it today that it seemed worth stopping to mention, especially given the timing.

I’ve never written a novel, and I have never even attempted to participate in National Novel Writing Month (aka, NaNoWriMo). In my efforts to knock out 90,000 words on this project in two months, though, I inadvertently seem to have done so this time around. It took me ’til the very last day, due to some unforeseen other freelance obligations falling into my lap earlier this week, but as of today I am just over 50,000 words into this project, which I started on November 1.

Which is to say that I guess I participated in NaNoWriMo for the first time ever this month after all, without really meaning to. It also means that this project is already the longest thing I have ever written, with another 40,000 more words to go in the month of December. More about it when I am allowed to say more, and in the meantime, don’t be surprised if you don’t hear from me for a while again. For now, I’m off to take a well-deserved break.

So Long, Leonard Cohen

You want it darker… we kill the flame.

The Clutching Hand is ravenous, and its hunger is never sated, but in 2016 it seems to have taken so much more than its normal remit. All year long I saw friends and peers mourn the losses of artists like David Bowie and Prince, to name just a few of many, and I joined them in their mourning, but I knew that there was a death coming that would touch me as deeply as I saw those touch my friends and fellow creators. It seems that the hour has come round at last. From his official Facebook page comes the news that Leonard Cohen has left us at the age of 82.

It can’t really be called a tragedy, for Cohen led a long and tremendous life, and his art touched the lives of millions of people. He finished and released what he had intended to be his last album just a few weeks ago. I don’t know how much more most of us can ask than that. Yet it is news that has shaken me to my core. In a week filled with such momentous events, a week of so much upheaval and uncertainty, so much fear and so much passion–for good or ill–the death of one old man seems a small thing, but Leonard Cohen had an enormous impact on my life and on my work, and I know that I’ll be hearing from him long after he’s gone.

He’s not a name that comes up often when I’m asked to list influences, and the proof may not be as obvious as some names within the genre where I work, but it is certainly there, again and again down through the years, ever since I first discovered him–by his lyrics first, then later by his music–in high school and early college. Leonard Cohen had as profound an influence on my work as any horror or weird fiction writer ever did, to be sure.

Many of the writers who influenced me were already dead before I came to them, and I’m in the unique position that the majority of the living writers whose works have affected me most profoundly are people I have met, or at least exchanged pleasantries with on Facebook or Twitter. But I never spoke to Leonard Cohen, never wrote him a letter, even missed my chance to see him perform live when he was in Kansas City a few years ago. So I never got to tell him what an impact he had on me; that he was my favorite songwriter, my favorite living poet. (I guess this means that I need to find a way to write a letter to Tom Stoppard, to thank him for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead…)

So many of Leonard Cohen’s songs deal with loss and love and mourning, with art and inspiration and passion, that there’s an overabundance to choose from to mark the occasion. And so many of his songs seem so perfect right now, given the state in which the country and the world finds itself this week. “The Future” leaps to mind, of course, and “Anthem,” and maybe most especially for me, “Democracy,” with its odd juxtaposition of hope and threat. There are songs that mean a lot to me, personally, and there are songs that are just so utterly Leonard Cohen-y, like “Humbled in Love” or “Boogie Street.” It’s tough to know what to choose, so just choose your favorite, I guess, and listen to that tonight.

The Tower of Song doesn’t seem like the kind of place where they let you rest in peace, but I’ll hope that his room there is at least comfortable, now, and that he’s got a decent view. We are left with his enormous body of work, by which he will continue speaking to us sweetly. I suppose that will have to be enough.

Hey, that’s no way to say goodbye…

On Hiatus

If you follow me on social media (or, heck, even if you follow me here) then odds are you won’t notice much difference, but nonetheless, I felt it needed to be said that for the next two-and-a-half months or so, I’m going to be diving hard into a big freelance project that’s clamped down tight under a non-disclosure agreement, so there’s a good chance that I won’t be posting a lot here until sometime early next year.

Given that I already don’t post a whole lot on here, the change may not be very substantial, and as I said, if you follow me on social media, you’re likely to continue to see me around, as I’ll need to come up for air from time to time. That said, if I follow you on social media, then apologies in advance if I miss a lot more of your posts than usual over the next couple of months. Things are going to be a bit hectic around here. (More on it as soon as I have the freedom to share.)

Considering how hectic things have already gotten over the last few days, I had a good birthday and a quiet but otherwise good Halloween, even if I did end up turning in before midnight for maybe the first time in my life. (My pumpkin stayed lit, though, so I’m okay.)

Also, perhaps a bit surprisingly, perhaps not, I watched more movies in the month of October than I ever have in a single month since I started keeping my movie journal. 47, all told, which is probably what happens when you spend most of the month recovering from a tonsillectomy and unable to do much of anything (including sleep) besides stare at a flickering screen.

Of those 47, 26 were new to me, keeping nicely with my “more movies that I haven’t seen before than movies that I have” goal for 2017.

Trick-or-Treat

Well, the last few days have been extraordinarily busy and draining for me, to the surprise of probably no one. On Saturday night, I stayed out way too late watching mystery horror movies with the fine folks from the Nerds of Nostalgia podcast, thanks to whom I can now say that Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is a thing that I have experienced. Then Sunday I was supposed to introduce a screening of the Vincent Price/Roger Corman/Richard Matheson adaptation of The Pit and the Pendulum at the Screenland, but I got caught in a horrible traffic snarl, and so I ended up talking afterward. (Extroducing it?) I had a book giveaway and did a reading of my story “Guignol.”

Yesterday was my birthday, though I didn’t do a lot more to celebrate than what I’ve already mentioned here, having kind of partied out the night before with the movie marathon. Today I’m not doing a lot either besides catching up from all the aforementioned, but that doesn’t mean that a lot isn’t going on. Since it’s Halloween, we’ve got some special Halloween treats for all of you, including a free story! Head on over to the Word Horde website to read my story “Strange Beast,” about ghosts and kaiju and maybe the ghosts of kaiju absolutely free! “Strange Beast” was one of the original stories I wrote exclusively for Painted Monsters & Other Strange Beasts, and this is the first time it’s ever been available anywhere else!

Meanwhile, Simon Berman of Strix Publishing has fast-tracked a little Halloween treat for all those who’re waiting patiently for your copies of the new deluxe edition of  Never Bet the Devil & Other Warnings. The book contains an all-new story that happens to be Halloween themed, and Mike Corley has been kind enough to show off the excellent illustration that he’s done to accompany it.

Meanwhile, Brian Lillie has assembled a whole passel of authors to make suggestions for suitably spooky Halloween reading. My humble contribution includes tales by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Jon Padgett, and Daniel Mills, all of which have been podcast by Pseudopod. That wasn’t an accident, and one of the reasons I chose to do it was because Pseudopod is currently running a Kickstarter. As part of that Kickstarter, they’re also putting together their first-ever anthology, which includes classic reprints along with all-new stories by yours truly, Damien Angelica Walters, A.C. Wise, and more! Here’s the newly-revealed table of contents, and we promise you, it’s true.

That’s just scratching the surface of what’s been going on lately, but I think for tonight it’s all I’ve got in me. Keep your jack-o-lanterns lit, have a happy Halloween, and always remember to check your candy…

I’ll leave you with what remains one of my all-time favorite Halloween illustrations by none other than the great Chris Sanders, and (unrelatedly) if you’re looking for something seasonal to do this evening,  you could do a lot worse than to plug a few hours into Halloween Forever!

Most of the Night Terror

Okay, it’s three days before Halloween, or will be by the time you read this. I’m writing it early, because I’m going to be busy the weekend of Halloween with one thing and another. For starters, the 30th is my birthday, and I’ll be hosting a FREE screening of The Pit and the Pendulum at the Screenland Armour at 2pm that day, if you happen to be local and want to drop by.

Normally, I would post this on Halloween itself, but this year Halloween night is on a Monday, which is just insult to injury, so if anyone is going to be celebrating with late-night horror movie marathons (as is right and proper) they’re probably going to be doing it today or tomorrow.

To help you out, I’ve gone ahead and programmed one for you that’ll run from dusk til, well, pretty late, anyway. Starting in at 6pm, just as the sun starts going down, and running until around 2 in the morning, by which time it’s safe to extinguish your jack-o-lanterns and start drifting off to bed or whatever else you might be doing. (Just a few minutes shy of 8 hours, to give you time to grab snacks, pause to hit the restroom, and rewind to watch particularly great scenes.) The theme of this year’s movie marathon is: horror movies that take place on Halloween!

6pm: Halloween (1978)

Arguably the Halloween movie (I mean, it’s right there in the name), John Carpenter’s classic is a good, restrained lead-in to the night, and may be at its very best when capturing the feel of Halloween afternoon leading up to the night itself, even while Haddonfield looks suspiciously non-autumnal for a town that’s supposed to be in Illinois (but is actually in California).

7:30pm: Trick ‘r Treat (2007)

Few things capture the Halloween spirit better than an anthology film, and when that anthology film is about Halloween, well, all the better. Mike Dougherty’s directorial debut may be the most Halloween-centric horror film ever made, and is the perfect movie to watch during the trick-or-treating hours.

9pm: Halloween 3 (1982)

It’s time. Don’t forget to put on your Silver Shamrock masks while you watch the big giveaway at nine, or just the most bonkers Halloween movie ever made, complete with, well, just about everything, from robots to Stonehenge to druid plots and masks that fill kids with crickets and snakes. Plus, the most nihilistic ending of the evening…

11pm: Night of the Demons (1988)

We’re heading into the midnight hour now, and so it’s time to dust off Night of the Demons. If Halloween captures the atmosphere of the night and Trick ‘r Treat conjures its spirit, then Night of the Demons is the closest you’re going to get to hanging out at a crappy Halloween party in a haunted house. Let it carry you through the witching hour, and then…

12:30am: The Guest (2014)

Blow out your jack-o-lanterns and get ready for  your Halloween marathon cool-down with The Guest, a movie every bit as rooted in Halloween as any other film on this list, but also one that’s standing at the edges of the party, making everyone uncomfortable. It’s a blast to watch, and a perfect way to end the night, easing out of Halloween mode without leaving the holiday behind completely.

By now it’s 2am, but if you want to keep the party going, feel free to drop a couple of other movies into the mix. Adding in Creepshow (1982) and The Midnight Hour (1985) ought to be enough to get you an all-night horror-thon that runs from dusk til dawn.

Pseudopod Kickstarter

Those who’ve been around here awhile are probably already familiar with Pseudopod, but in case you’re not, they’re a terrific horror fiction podcast. I sold my first story to Pseudopod clear back in 2009, when I was still three years away from having a book out with my name on it. It remains a favorite, and you can listen to it here.

Over the years I’ve enjoyed a good working relationship with Pseudopod, and sold them a few more stories. The folks who work there are all great people who do great work, and though we (or at least I) tend to think of podcasts as something separate from, say, magazines, there are few horror publications going that consistently produce the kind of quality that you get from Pseudopod, full stop.

This year represents their tenth anniversary, and in honor of the occasion they’re holding a Kickstarter to raise funds to help pay narrators. (They already pay their authors pro rates, making them also one of the only consistent pro-paying all-horror markets around.) The Kickstarter has all sorts of great reward tiers, and one of the most exciting aspects is that the folks at Pseudopod have assembled their first anthology for the occasion, including some classic reprints from their archives but also featuring new tales by Damien Angelica Walters, A.C. Wise, and yours truly, to name a few.

I’m really happy with “New and Strangely Bodied,” the story that I wrote for For Mortal Things Unsung, and I’m excited for it to make its way out into the world. Besides the anthology, there’s a backer tier where you can get every one of my books, in case you don’t have those already, including the forthcoming deluxe edition of Never Bet the Devil & Other Warnings from Strix Publishing. (And speaking of Strix, there’s also a backer tier that gets you Never Bet the Devil along with Strix’s first publication, The Book of Starry Wisdom, featuring a deluxe illustrated treatment of three of Lovecraft’s stories, along with essays by myself and several other, more notable voices in the weird field.)

But really, I don’t need to be telling you any of this, because a picture is worth a thousand words, and there’s only one thing you really need to know: Look at this freakin’ tiki mug!

“We played in a graveyard.” – Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016)

Rarely (if ever) has there been as great a jump in quality from a movie to its sequel (or prequel, as the case may be) as the one from Ouija to Ouija 2: Electric Boogaloo Ouija: Origin of Evil. That’s what I tweeted when I got home from the theatre, and I stick by it. Which is not to say that Origin of Evil is necessarily the greatest sequel (or prequel) of all time, merely that sequels this good normally come from movies that were already pretty great, whereas the kindest thing that can be said of 2014’s Ouija is probably that it was a harmless enough way to spend 89 minutes.

It’s tempting to lay this at the feet of Mike Flanagan’s sure directorial hand, which he has demonstrated time and again, even if I am in the minority in finding Hush, one of his earlier 2016 efforts, merely okay. But the quality of Origin of Evil owes at least as much to the smart, human script by co-writers Flanagan and Jeff Howard (who also worked together on the superb Oculus and this year’s Before I Wake, which I haven’t yet seen). Since it’s a prequel, there’s really no need to have seen Ouija beforehand, though the storyline dovetails with what I remember from the original in ways that I think will probably improve both films, in the long run. Another rare accomplishment for a sequel or prequel.

Origin of Evil is The Conjuring to Ouija‘s Insidious, not just in its period setting and Catholic trappings, but in its family dynamic and choice to deepen its chills by the juxtaposition of moments of real warmth. (And also an unnecessary scare scene with some blankets that feels lifted directly from The Conjuring.) The script is an incredibly slow burn for a movie with a relatively brief running time of only 99 minutes, but in the final reel things go from exposition to full-on haunted house bonkers at the drop of a hat. It’s an explosion of weirdness that is all the more potent for how restrained the movie has been up to that point.

There are missteps along the way, mostly in the execution of a few of the earlier jump scares and obligatory “creepy kid” moments–Flanagan appears to be better at a kind of creeping realization or hopeless desperation than at delivering a sudden shock–but the extravagances of the last act go a long way toward erasing them from memory. There’s one moment in particular during the film’s absurd spookshow climax that feels like it comes bungee-jumping directly out of Junji Ito manga, in all the best ways.

While the sequel to one of 2014’s worst ghost movies may seem an unlikely place to find one of 2016’s best, sometimes we get something better than we deserve, and it’s tough to imagine a better Ouija movie–sequel, prequel, or otherwise–than the one Mike Flanagan and company have brought us here. Recommended.

Scream and Scream Again

I was 15 years old when Scream first came out back in 1996, at a time and place in my life when it was pretty much guaranteed to be a big deal for me. I didn’t see it in theatres, so chances are I didn’t actually catch it until the following year, when it was available on home video, with that VHS cover that prominently advertised Drew Barrymore’s very brief involvement in the film.

While I had always been into movies and monsters and whatnot, these were the days just before the Internet became what it is now, when the only movies I had access to were the ones that played on the three television channels that we got, or that I could rent from the video section of the local grocery store. As a young horror movie nerd living in isolation from most things that could sustain a horror movie nerd, Scream wasn’t so much an introduction to self-aware horror as it was a confirmation that, yes, there were other people like me out there.

I don’t normally think of Scream when I think of my formative influences, in part because I rarely sit down and think to myself, “I want to make something like Scream,” or even, “I want to respond to this aspect of Scream in this particular way.” But is that really what a formative influence is? I think our formative influences are less often the things that made us go, “I want to create something like X” and more often the things that left us with the, often semi-unconscious realization, “Oh hell, I can do something kind of like Y!”

Come to think of it, I’m not actually sure that I’ve ever seen a Scream film on the big screen. For all the times the sequels traded in the experience of watching a movie in a crowded and rowdy theatre, for me they have always been home video movies. Like the Ring franchise, best encapsulated by that indelible image of a couple of friends sitting down on the couch with a tub of popcorn to watch a scary movie. I have seen all of the Scream films, though, more than once, and found things to like in all of them, though only the first one ever had the particular impact on me that it did.

In fact, if you want to measure solely based upon how much I enjoyed watching them, Scream 4 might be my favorite of the bunch. All of the Scream sequels succeed or fail, to the extent that they do, for reasons that have almost nothing to do with what made the first film work. After that initial outing, the first film’s premise is a liability, not a benefit, and so the Scream franchise, while still shackled to its own rules, lives and dies by its adherence to its core cast of characters, who, after making four movies with one another across almost twenty years, really do feel like old friends who have been through a lot together. Maybe that’s why Scream 4 works better for me than parts 2 or 3 did…

All of which is an extraordinarily long-winded way of saying that I loved Scream, but never really identified myself as a lover of it, or felt like I had a very big investment in the brand. So I wasn’t really expecting much from the spinoff TV series, which abandoned the thing that I just said made the franchise continue to work, and which, let’s face it, just seemed like a bad idea. Hell, the show even knows that it’s a bad idea, and gives its Randy-equivalent character a monologue in the first episode explaining exactly why it’s a bad idea. And yet…

I started watching the first season of the Scream TV series because I was bored and wanted something horror-y and episodic and it was on Netflix. I didn’t expect to like it; I certainly didn’t expect to fall in love. Don’t get me wrong; Scream is nowhere near a perfect show. It’s camped somewhere maybe just above the realm of “guilty pleasure.” Is it better than the movie franchise? I don’t know that I’d be willing to commit to that, and it’s certainly not going to change the game the way the first movie did, but I’m pretty sure that I like it better.

Part of this is because the show knows how to get to me, to push my particular buttons. The decision to tie the events of the show to a previous mass murder, an homage to the plot of any given early-80s slasher film, changes the dynamic in a way that appeals directly to me, adding a welcome sense of history and, yes, even minor mythology to the proceedings.

But mostly the show works by managing to be what it needs to be more often than it doesn’t. It’s endearing when it needs to be endearing, creepy when it needs to be creepy, poignant when it needs to be poignant. In one of his monologues, Noah, our resident Randy-alike, talks about how you have to care about the people in order to make a show like this work, and Scream does a decent job of supplying a raft of people that you can care about, if you’re so inclined. There’s more than a little of “fun teenage clue solving hi-jinks,” but always broken up by something particularly gruesome or painful, to keep everything from becoming too weightless.

The first season starts off a little rough and ends with a whimper instead of a bang, but in-between it is something pretty special, so I was really excited to check out the second season, especially when I saw its convention of naming episodes after horror movie titles. It dropped onto Netflix on September 30th, and since I was laid up from having a tonsillectomy and couldn’t really do anything else anyway, I watched all 12 episodes within 24 hours.

I’ve heard lots of people say that they liked the second season better than the first. I’m not sure that I’m one of them, but it has a lot going for it. If I didn’t like it better, it probably has as much to do with the fact that I went into season 1 expecting nothing and got something I loved, while I went into season 2 already expecting something I loved, and still mostly got it.

There’s something to be said for storytelling that’s unexpectedly effective, without getting too ambitious. Which isn’t to say that there aren’t strong set pieces, and some familiar horror directors who show up to helm episodes to various effect. In season 1 there are good segments in an abandoned hospital and at the Halloween dance, not to mention one particularly gruesome kill that hits all the harder because the show hasn’t done anything especially noteworthy in the gore department up until that point. In season 2, there’s a sequence in a funhouse at a carnival, directed by Gil Kenan, that reminds me of how disappointed I am that his Poltergeist remake wasn’t more fun, and of course the town of Lakewood has an old-fashioned one-screen revival theatre that appears to only show horror films.

Season 2 has some issues with pacing, but as with season 1, the main problem is with the ending. If the first season was a little unsteady on the dismount, then the “resolution” of season 2 is a full-on faceplant off the beam. It’s tricky to say more without getting into the realm of major spoilers, but suffice to say that it’s difficult to imagine anyone who would find this tired, unearned ending satisfying.

My first draft of this post ended on a note saying that, while I would probably sign up for a third season, albeit with a lot of hesitation, it might be best to just let the show die there, especially in the wake of that finale. After all, there’s really only so much flogging that a premise like this can endure.

But then the official Scream website launched a video previewing their two-hour Halloween special, which not only adds another historic killing spree but also takes the show on the road with some full-on Agatha Christie, And Then There Were None murder island shenanigans, and just like that I am completely on board again. While the showrunners on Scream may not be great at sticking landings, they obviously know exactly how to push my buttons, so I guess I’m along for the ride, however disappointing the destinations may prove.

[This post originally appeared on my Patreon.]

All Hallow’s Read: 9 Books

A few years ago, Neil Gaiman suggested this idea that he called All Hallow’s Read, in which we would all start a tradition of giving each other suitably spooky books on Halloween. I don’t think it ever really caught on, but I do know plenty of people who have annual traditions of reading a certain book every year around this time, whether it’s A Night in the Lonesome October or Ray Bradbury’s The Halloween Tree.

So whether you’re looking for a scary book to give as a gift this Halloween, or just want something seasonal to read for yourself as the leaves start to turn, I thought I’d throw together a quick list of recommended Halloween reading, limiting myself pretty strictly to books by authors who are currently still alive and working.

Besides mostly avoiding books in which I had any hand (with one exception), I tried not to include books that I haven’t read myself just yet, though you can see that I missed the mark in some ways. That left out a number of books that might otherwise have made the cut, including John Langan’s The Fisherman and Paul Tremblay’s A Head Full of Ghosts or Disappearance at Devil’s Rock. I also limited the list to prose books, though I bent the rules a little bit there too with the last inclusion, leaving aside any of the dozens of graphic novels that might otherwise have dominated the list, and preventing it from being an All Mignola, All the Time list, as it otherwise would have been…

Creeping Waves , Matthew M. Bartlett

Besides being perfect for the Halloween season, Matthew M. Bartlett’s Creeping Waves is just one of the best weird/horror books I’ve read in years, full stop. And hey, it’s on a massive sale from the publisher for the entire month of October, so there’s no better time than the present to pick it up!
All-Night Terror , Adam Cesare & Matt Serafini

Really, pretty much any of Adam Cesare’s books could go on this list handily, and if you’ve already read All-Night Terror, I recommend subbing it out for Video Night. Either way, this nails that feeling of sitting down for a horror movie marathon with a big tub of popcorn and some of your best friends, while also bringing in a little of the feeling of those E.C. horror comics. Plus, it’s on sale for cheap on the Kindle for the month of October!
Every House is Haunted , Ian Rogers

The big news surrounding Ian’s short story collection from back in 2012 is that one of the stories from it, “The House on Ashley Avenue,” recently got optioned for an NBC TV series from the writers of Bates Motel and The Grudge! But long before that had ever happened, Every House is Haunted was already one of the best single-author horror collections out there, with an assured and enchanting mix of scary stories that are utterly perfect for autumnal reading.
The Bone Key , Sarah Monette

An old favorite, Sarah Monette writes some of the best contemporary ghost stories that you will ever read, and many of them are collected right here in The Bone Key, which bears the irresistible subtitle, The Necromantic Mysteries of Kyle Murchison Booth. Really, how can you go wrong with that?
The Secret of Ventriloquism , Jon Padgett

I’m cheating a little bit on this one, because I haven’t yet read the entire collection, and it’s not actually out yet. But it is available for pre-order, and it should be shipping soon, and while I haven’t read every single story in it, I’ve read enough to know how excited I am for this one. Creepy ventriloquist dummies, malformed skeletons, and plenty of Ligottian nihilism make this one a perfect fit as the days grow short and the nights grow tall.
The Last Final Girl , Stephen Graham Jones

What would Halloween be without a slasher flick or two? And Stephen Graham Jones delivers a slasher flick as only he can with his incredible novel, The Last Final Girl. When I first read it back in 2014, I called it “the book he was born to write, the book he’s been training for all this time.” I stick by that.
Giallo Fantastique, ed. Ross E. Lockhart

Speaking of slashers, here I am bending my rules just a little bit, this time by including a book that I’m featured in. And if I was gonna do that anyway and recommend a Word Horde anthology, I should probably be shilling the just-released  Eternal Frankenstein , even though I haven’t gotten a chance to read it myself just yet. But for me, there’s no more brilliant concept for an anthology around than Ross’s incredible Giallo Fantastique, a vibrantly-colored mixture of crime, horror, and the bizarre that’s perfect reading for Halloween, or any other season.
Dreams of Shreds and Tatters , Amanda Downum

And while we’re on the subject of things that are yellow: Think of Dreams of Shreds and Tatters as urban fantasy by way of The King in Yellow and Lovecraft’s Dream Cycle. Or think of it as the coolest World of Darkness game you could ever imagine playing. However you think of it, pick it up. While the setting may be a bit wintry for October, it’s a perfect read for the end of fall, as the air starts to get that extra bite of cold to it.
Guillermo del Toro: At Home with Monsters

Designed as a companion to the exhibit of the same name that’s currently running at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, At Home with Monsters is another book that I haven’t quite read from cover to cover just yet, but I don’t need to in order to know that it’s also a great companion for monster season. Full of images and insights from del Toro’s collection, it’s a perfect book for any monster lover.