James Dorr's Blog, page 142

Mystery Tables of Contents Un-Mystified (Partly), Books Now at Printer

Today brings us an email by Flame Tree Publishing’s Gillian Whitaker to the effect that their two upcoming mystery anthologies (cf. June 20) have now gone to print.  Moreover, “we have now announced the list of authors — new and classic — included in each anthology, so you can finally see who you will be appearing alongside.  The stories appear alphabetically by author in the books, regardless of whether they were classic stories or new submissions, as we have found this keeps the pacing and tone varied throughout.”  For a little background, or to practically quote myself from last month, two titles had been announced, CRIME AND MYSTERY (to “feature whodunits, detective stories and mysteries bordering on the supernatural.  Probably the more gentle of the two volumes so think Sherlock Holmes, Father Brown and Poirot”) and MURDER MAYHEM (“more hard boiled and hard gore.  If your story features real monsters, human, serial killer or otherwise, this is the home for them, especially if the story’s POV is the killer’s”).  My offerings in these are “Paperboxing Art,” originally published in NEW MYSTERY in Summer 1997 and a 1998 Anthony Award nominee for best short story, and “Mr. Happy Head” from WICKED MYSTIC, Spring 1996, the magazine that once had the distinction of being turned back from a prisoner-subscriber by the Texas prison system as being unsuitable for an inmate on death row (true story).

So now we know where the “new” stories stand, or two of them anyway, but what we don’t know still are the titles of the classics they’ll live amongst.  Be that as it may though, below are listed the roster(s) of “newbies” by name and title, plus listings of names alone of the old masters.

Gotta retain some surprises, eh?

But to the chase, or, to quote the publishers once again:  Building on the success of last year’s Gothic Fantasy anthologies, deluxe hardcover editions on Horror, Ghosts and Science Fiction, we’re thrilled to be adding two new titles to the collection: Crime & Mystery, and Murder Mayhem.  Once again offering up the potent mix of classic tales and new fiction, we take a fascinating look back to the origins of the genre from golden age detective whodunnits to chilling horror-based tales of murder.  We’re including such auspicious names as Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Allan Poe, G.K. Chesterton and William Hope Hodgson, who masterfully crafted stories that are still worth reading today, and that continue to inspire the modern authors we are excited to be able to publish alongside them.  Our call for submissions was met with a fantastic response, and though the final selection was tough, we thoroughly enjoyed reading so many new tales of mayhem and intrigue.

We’re delighted to announce the full list of successful submissions for the first two of our 2016 Gothic Fantasy deluxe anthologies.

Crime & Mystery

The Cost of Security by Tara Campbell

Skitter and Click by Jennifer Dornan-Fish

Paperboxing Art by James Dorr

Home Run by Marcelle Dubé

Suggestive Thoughts by H.L. Fullerton

I Am Nightmare by Jennifer Gifford

Three Words by Nathan Hystad

The Marionettist by John A. Karr

Mechanical Love by Kin S. Law

iMurder by Josh Pachter

Creature of the Thaumatrope by Tony Pi

The Whipping Boy by Conor Powers-Smith

The Man Wore Motley by Stephen D. Rogers

The House by Steve Shrott

Catzized by Annette Siketa

Ghosts, Bigfoot and Free Lunches by Dan Stout

Blood and Silver Beneath the Many Moons by Brian Trent

Murder on the Cogsworthy Express by Cameron Trost

Chains of Command by Sylvia Spruck Wrigley and Ruth Nestvold

These new authors will appear with the following classic and essential writers: Ernest Bramah, G.K. Chesterton, Wilkie Collins, Richard Harding Davis, Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle, R. Austin Freeman, Jacques Futrelle, Anna Katharine Green, Arthur Griffiths, E.W. Hornung, Maurice Leblanc, Jack London, Arthur Morrison, Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur B. Reeve, Mark Twain, Edgar Wallace, Victor L. Whitechurch, Israel Zangwill.

Murder Mayhem

The Wendigo Goes Home by Sara Dobie Bauer

Funeral by Michael Cebula

Into the Blue by Carolyn Charron

Mr. Happy Head by James Dorr

Nineteen Sixty-Five Ford Falcon by Tim Foley

Mama Said by Steven Thor Gunnin

Six Aspects of Cath Baduma by Kate Heartfield

Freedom is not Free by David M. Hoenig

How to Build a Mass Murderer by Liam Hogan

The Two-Out-of-Three Rule by Patrick J. Hurley

Getting Shot in the Face Still Stings by Michelle Ann King

Less than Katherine by Claude Lalumière

Shared Losses by Gerri Leen

Drive Safe by K.A. Mielke

Redux by Alexandra Camille Renwick

The First Seven Deaths of Mildred Orly by Fred Senese

Mister Ted by Donald Jacob Uitvlugt

Corpses Removed, No Questions Asked by Dean H. Wild

Fragments of Me by Nemma Wollenfang

These new authors will appear with the following classic and essential writers:  Ambrose Bierce, Steen Steensen Blicher, G.K. Chesterton, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, Dick Donovan, Arthur Conan Doyle, William Hope Hodgson, E.T.A. Hoffman, Robert E. Howard, W.W. Jacobs, Franz Kafka, Rudyard Kipling, H.P. Lovecraft, Edith Nesbit, Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur B. Reeve, Robert Louis Stevenson, Bram Stoker, Ethel Lina White, Oscar Wilde.

Proof Sheets, Proof Sheets . . . and the Ghouls of Tombs

Busy, busy, busy weekend and busy end of the week leading to it.  Saturday’s task is to send changes back to Bards and Sages for my story, “Ice Vermin,” to come in THE GREAT TOME OF FANTASTIC AND WONDROUS PLACES (cf. May 11), Volume 3 in the GREAT TOMES series.  This along with an early meeting of my writers group (usually on the third, not the second Saturday of the month), but for the solitary writer that’s almost more fun than work.

But then this will segue into a second set of proof sheets, this to GrayWhisper Graphics Productions for SINGULAR IRREGULARITY with my story there “The Master of Time” (see May 23, 9, April 27), a tome (to pardon the expression) of time travel gone wrong.  Hopefully this will be finished on Sunday.

And lastly the task I’ve already completed, actually lateish Thursday night in response to a question by Chuck Zaglanis of Elder Signs Press:  a description of ghouls as they appear in TOMBS:  A CHRONICLE OF LATTER-DAY TIMES OF EARTH (cf. July 5, 1, May 23).  Details, details.  I threw in some other beings too, boat-gypsies, necromancers, for these to morph into artist suggestions as the book’s cover begins to take shape.  The book itself is to be a novel-in-stories, scheduled to be out next spring, about a far-future dying Earth and the death-centric culture that starts to arise as the end grows nigh.  But of course there are other concerns as well, as trade, making money, planning funerals, protecting the dead from those who eat corpses, and above all loving.

But more on this one as its own time grows nigh!

Cemetery Riots Out at Tail End of June, in Print on Amazon; By Force Fitted in by Misfit Society

“Imagine yourself in a cemetery.  Void of all light at the base of a tree.  But it’s no ordinary tree.  This tree abounds with the dead.  Now envision that each tree limb is a short story with its own vision, its own length of words, and its own insanity. . . .”

So begins the description on Amazon of CEMETERY RIOTS (cf. May 5; September 2, August 27 2015), dated the last day of June, the 30th, by Editors T.C. Bennett and Tracy L. Carbone with stories by such as Richard Christian Matheson, Hal Bodner, Eric J. Guignard, John Palisano, William F. Nolan, and, um, me.  A “new collection of dark cautionary tales” in which mine, “The Re-Possessed,” might be seen as a warning to never stiff (yes, pun intended) the funeral director.

But hey, this is one we’ve been waiting for, so without, as they say, further ado, for more information/ordering press here.

Then, received this afternoon, my fantasy/mystery courtroom novelette “By Force and Against the King’s Peace” has received a publication date for Bards and Sages Publishing’s THE SOCIETY OF MISFIT STORIES (cf. June 23), a new electronic-only series tailored for science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories from 5,000 to 20,000 words that may find themselves at an awkward length for submission elsewhere.  “By Force. . . ,” at a tad less than 10,000 words, is itself a reprint (which is okay, though it’s expected that most “Society” members will probably be new) originally published in ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE in December 1999, and is being tagged here to appear on September 9.

Dusty Pages Tombs Interview Oct. 24? Blurb, More Questions Previewed

We have a go for our DUSTY PAGES interview (see July 1, June 28), conducted by British Blogger and generally neat question maker-upper Sonnet O’Dell, and a tentative date of Monday, October 24.  My answers got in in time to be scheduled even earlier but, with Halloween in the offing, I’d wondered if that date might be available instead.  Well . . . no.  Not surprisingly Sonnet likes to do something special herself on All Hallows E’en, but how about a week earlier?  And so, Halloween being on Monday as well, look for an announcement here just before the last week in October, that interview time will be in the near future.

As for neat questions, I’ve already mentioned the one about the duck and the bar.  For another,  I quote verbatim:  “Glass half full or half empty?”  The answer is kind of obvious, actually, if you think about it, but in order to see for  yourself, well, check back here on October 24.  And it’s not just for that one but for the important questions too, the ones about my new novel-in-stories, TOMBS:  A CHRONICLE OF LATTER-DAY TIMES OF EARTH, such as “Why did you want to write this book?”  And of course the opening, “Tell me about your upcoming. . . .”

All these and more will be unveiled a week before the end of October — including a brand new blurb for the novel, complete with a quote, composed especially for the occasion (but possibly sneak previewed on these pages a little bit earlier, possibly in the dog days of August when temperatures rise high, higher than summers remembered before, as they might well do on a dying, exhausted planet as well, even the sun growing red in its old age . . . as in, that is . . .  the world of the TOMBS).

And as for the novel itself, it’s expected to follow from Elder Signs Press next spring.

Darkest Horrors, Unspeakable Evils Arrive Just in Time for Fourth if July; Just When You Thought It Was Safe. . . .

Even if it was a Sunday, Amazon Fulfillment Services came through with the second in Bards and Sages’s GREAT TOMES series (cf. June 23, et al.).  Yes, staring out of my mailbox with baleful eye (or surely so had it not been confined to its sealed padded envelope) was the book, the second volume, THE GREAT TOME OF DARKEST HORRORS AND UNSPEAKABLE EVILS (June 9, March 4).  “Plots revolving around monsters, evil aliens, or otherworldly entities. . .” the guidelines had said.  “For purposes of this anthology, the monster or entity must be a wholly original concept to the story and not based on an existing ‘real world’ legend.”  And here it was, another eleven stories*, edited as had been Volume 1 by Julie Ann Dawson, including my tale of “Pavlov’s Dogs,” third from the end in its unholy lineup.

Pavlov’s dogs, yes, based on the famous canines trained to respond to bells, in this case with a young man with ambition determined to show that people, too, can be similarly responsive.  And who as well has a girlfriend, but one less interested in the sciences.  So where’s the dark horror and/or unspeakable evil in that, one might ask?  Well . . . the book can be found on Amazon by pressing here.

But that’s not all for this Fourth of July.  Not nearly all.  Forgotten Relics and Artifacts. . .  Darkest Horrors and Unspeakable Evils. . .  Fantastic and Wondrous Places. . .  Cryptids and Legendary Creatures. . .  Yes, we have braved them all, the four GREAT TOMES, two still to be published but we have had forewarning.  So, just when we had begun to think it was safe . . . a perusal  of the final pages of Volume 2 reveals there are now two more GREAT TOMES to come:  THE GREAT TOME OF DRAGONS AND DRACONIC LORE (“Plots revolving around dragons and dragonkin creatures”) and THE GREAT TOME OF MAGICIANS, NECROMANCERS, AND MYSTICS (“Fictional accounts of historic or legendary magic users, such as Merlin, Rasputin, Medea, Marie Laveau, etc.).

More information on all of these can be found in the guidelines by pressing here.

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*The sharp-eyed reader will notice the contents page in the book shows only ten titles, excluding the “Introduction,” “About the Authors,” and “The Great Tome Series” at the end, yet Amazon’s listing (as well as the book’s own back cover) insists on eleven.  To escape this devilish trap with one’s sanity intact, turn to page 48.

Bonjour Aimée! Flightless Rats One of Ten Short Sips of Mocha’s Dark Brew

February is Women in Horror Month, and we here at Mocha Memoirs Press love our ladies of horror!

In celebration of “Ghoul Power,” we hosted a Flash Fiction Contest.

This collection contains the bone-chilling stories from the top ten finalists.

So says the announcement from Mocha Memoirs Press for their Women in Horror Month Flash Fiction Contest chapbook (cf. June 21, 8, February 23, et al.), now titled MOCHA’S DARK BREW.  At least for the present, the book can be bought on Createspace only for a mere $3.00 — but, buyer beware, a shipping cost of slightly more than that will be required too.  Nevertheless, while most definitely a proverbial “thin volume,” what wonderful stuffers for Halloween stockings!  Or handing out for tricks and treats?  Or even for gifties for next February’s Women in Horror Month, maybe combined with Valentine’s day too.

For all that, my entry in this self-styled “micro-anthology” is a tale of the vampiress Aimée on a post-concert night in 19th century New Orleans, originally published in T. GENE DAVIS’S SPECULATIVE BLOG (see January 12 2015).  Arrived in the city slightly more than a century before, from time to time she finds herself between husbands — but, as for anyone, dates sometimes go wrong.  And now, in “Flightless Rats,” what happens next can be tasted again with nine other finalist stories, all fine bitter spoonfuls of horror delight in a truly dark brew, for information/ordering of which one may press here.

Tombs Lore, More Sent to Sonnet O’Dell; Horror Movies’ Secret Revealed?

And so today I completed Sonnet O’Dell’s DUSTY PAGES author interview (see just below, June 30), answering twelve of a whopping fifty-question lineup.  No, no, those were enough, in fact we were asked not to do more than fifteen, but that’s part of the fun of Sonnet’s questionnaires, that most questions are serious, but some are plain wacky.  “A duck walks into a bar, what does he order?”  Yes, that’s one I chose, but as for my answer to it . . . well, we’ll find out here eventually, won’t we?  But first we must find out from Sonnet if/when the interview’s scheduled for publication.

Meantime email perusal continues with today’s bringing another item worth passing on.  I’ve been on convention panels related to this one, the nuts and bolts of how many (maybe all?) popular horror films work.  So herewith from CRACKED.COM, “The Secret Thing All Horror Movies Are Really About” by Robert Brockman, courtesy of Peter Saloman via HORROR WRITERS ASSOCIATION on Facebook, and for which press here.  (And then, of course, the fun for this one is to look for exceptions.  Any suggestions?)

At the Movies: Paying a Visit to Horror High?

No, no, not the school with the zombie students (well, with some, maybe) but real horror highs.  As it happens, last night I watched BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW but a combination of lack of patience and sleepiness meant I’ll really have to try it again.  But then, by coincidence, what should I run across today but another list . . . with, at number 6, BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW.  There are a few I already have, NAKED LUNCH for one, but also some I’ll be ordering today if I can find them.  The list:  “Top 10 Drug Horror Movies” by Josh Millican on THEBLOOD-SHED.COM, brought to us somewhat indirectly by Mark Matthews via the HORROR WRITERS ASSOCIATION on Facebook.  And which, to see for yourself, press here.

It’s About Time Anthology Open for Deep Discount Pre-Order

IT’S ABOUT TIME.  The guidelines had asked, “[w]hen you hear that phrase, what comes to your mind?  A parent or a spouse, arms crossed, foot tapping, watching as someone sneaks in at night?  Or do you see a calendar, its days or weeks flapping.  Maybe you see time extending into an imagined future, something yet to be understood or experienced.”  And so, we may recall from last year (cf. November 12, September 14), I submitted and subsequently had accepted a curious tale called “Curious Eyes,” a reprint story originally published in THE FICTION PRIMER in December 1988.  A love story, really, of a lonely night in a local bar made suddenly brighter in ways unexpected, but having to do with time machines, field trips, and future students.

But time has now passed and (dare one say it) IT’S ABOUT TIME:  “The collection has been made available,” according to publisher Main Street Rag, “for Advance Sale on the MSR Online Bookstore.  . . .  The cover price that will appear on the book will be $15.95.  For the Advance Sale period, it can be ordered from the MSR Online Bookstore for $8.50 + sales tax (if the buyer is in NC) + shipping.”  The announcement adds that the approximate release date is listed as October 2016, but “will be refined as it draws closer.”  Also, “the discount price may be discontinued at any time.  We usually cancel the discount price about 2 weeks ahead of release date”.

The publisher stresses that this discount applies only to advance orders made directly through their online bookstore and via PayPal (check or credit cards can be accepted as well, but at a special flat rate of $12.50 per copy).  Again the base cost is only $8.50 with sales tax (if any) and shipping calculated by the processor to give a total before you actually pay, including such things as discounts on shipping for multiple orders.  Or, quoting Main Street Rag directly again:  “The online advance sale price is $8.50 + shipping (about $3.60), but check or credit card rate will be $12.50/each.”

Which is to say, it’s not really that complicated at all.  Or, for more information and/or to advance order, one need but press here.

Tombs Details Revealed in Dusty Pages Interview this Fall? Date to Be Set After Answers are In

The word came yesterday from British blogger Sonnet O’Dell that she’ll be seeking interviewees for her DUSTY PAGES “Meet a Writer Monday” feature from September through the end of the year.  As long-time readers of this blog may know, Sonnet and I are not strangers either, so I replied quickly:  “We’ve met before, most recently last August, I believe, with my latest book then my collection THE TEARS OF ISIS.  I would love to do a new interview (and, I might add, your questions are neat — I still remember the mouse-sized elephants vs. the elephant-sized mouse!).  As it happens, I’ve recently signed the contract for a new book, a novel-in-stories called TOMBS:  A CHRONICLE OF LATTER-DAY TIMES OF EARTH, scheduled for next spring from Elder Signs Press which would make this fall an excellent time for an interview/preview too!  Perhaps in October, a week or two before Halloween?”

And so today the reply has come, with a set of 50 questions from which I’m to select 10 or 15 to answer (I already know what I can say for “Who was your first crush?”), the exact date to be determined however by the order in which answers, etc., are sent back.  Fair enough, although with the recent flurry of things noted in the past week, mine may push me farther back in the queue.  But that’s fair enough too.  The real point is that this is an opportunity to present some early info — a teaser of sorts — about TOMBS to whet potential reader appetites (or so one may hope!).

As mentioned, Sonnet has interviewed me the previous few years, notably on August 17 2015, June 2 2014 (which included the “mouse/elephant” question alluded to above, the gist of which was whether it’s better to be trampled by hundreds of tiny pachyderms or one very plus-sized rodent), and July 29 2013, as posted on those dates below as well, but, alas, the links there to the actual interviews are long since dead.  However, one may still read the 2015 interview for oneself in the DUSTY PAGES archives by pressing here, then scrolling to about the third entry down.  It may be possible in fact to dig even more deeply into the archives, perhaps as far back as to 2013, but let’s let that be an exercise for those who wish to explore as they will.