James Dorr's Blog, page 152

Movie Fans’ Checklist, Top Ten Adaptations from Novels (One Goddess’s Opinion)

It was one of those things I just come across, this time courtesy of Robert Dunbar via Facebook’s LITERARY DARKNESS, “The Goddess’s Top Ten Horror Novel Adaptations” on GODDESS OF HELLFIRE, by Jenny Ashford. And, as a bonus, Ashford then lists twenty more films adapted from novels or short stories, albeit in some cases somewhat loosely, some of them classics in their own right.

How many have you seen? Possibly more than you think (a minor favorite of mine, CEMETERY MAN, is noted in the list of “extras” as from the novel DELLAMORTE DELLAMORE by Tiziano Sclavi, which prior to now I had never heard of). To see the list for yourself, press here.

Another Day, Another Proof: Mermaid “Haiku” for Star*Line 39.1

So today brought a proof copy of STAR*LINE 39.1 with my 3-line mermaid shortie (see November 28).  I put “haiku” in quotation marks because it isn’t really, at least in any rigorous sense, but rather an epigram with its title replacing its one-time first line.  But that done, it still works and so the proof was returned tonight with the issue, dated Winter 2016, presumably to be out very soon.

For the poem itself, it’s about a mermaid, but not a very nice one.  One will find it on page 13, nestled in the bottom right-hand corner, appropriately given that its title/first line is “death from below.”  As for STAR*LINE, it’s the official quarterly publication of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, more about which can be found here.

Candle Room, Great Tome Preliminary Galley Received, Contents List Announced

As we settle into the new year, a preliminary galley came today from Bards and Sages Publishing for THE GREAT TOME OF FORGOTTEN RELICS AND ARTIFACTS (cf. November 19, October 21).  This is for a reprint story, “The Candle Room,” originally published in Summer 1995 in TERMINAL FRIGHT and also in THE TEARS OF ISIS.  Still on course for a March publication, this galley was just to verify such things as spellings of authors’ names and titles, use of Italics, and scene break positioning — much of this a check on the publisher’s converting files to their own system.  Thus okayed, a second galley with editing corrections or changes, if any, should come around the end of the month.

This volume, when it comes out, will be the first of four “GREAT TOMES” projected by the publisher.  The second will be THE GREAT TOME OF DARKEST HORRORS AND UNSPEAKABLE EVIL, submissions for which closed at the end of December, to then be followed by FANTASTIC AND WONDEROUS PLACES (reading from now till the end of March) and CRYPTIDS AND LEGENDARY CREATURES (submissions from March 31 to June 30).  And will I have stories in some of these too?

Time will tell — but in the meantime here is a contents list (not in final publication order, e.g., in the preliminary galley at least, my story is listed fourth) as announced for  THE GREAT TOME OF FORGOTTEN RELICS AND ARTIFACTS on the Bards and Sages website.

The Candle Room by James Dorr

The Heart of Irelda by Jeff Sullins

Her Long Hair Shining by Simon Kewin

Digging for Paradise by Ian Creasey

Light Bringer by Deborah Walker

The Nimrod Lexicon by Taylor Harbin

Life Sentence by Miranda Stewart

The Shepherd by CB Droege

The Rightful Owner by Linda Tyler

The Head of John the Baptist by G. Miki Hayden

The Binding Agent by Douglas J. Ogurek

Seamus Tripp and the Golden Plates by Richard Walsh and Jon Garett

Oracle at Delphi Street by Jon Etter

Special Collections by Jon Etter

The Djinn at the Wheel by Kathy L. Brown

Just Because It’s Cool: A Big Bowl of Calamari?

“With its untold depths, couldn’t the sea keep alive such huge specimens of life from another age, this sea that never changes while the land masses undergo almost continuous alteration? Couldn’t the heart of the ocean hide the last–remaining varieties of these titanic species, for whom years are centuries and centuries millennia?”

— Jules Verne, 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA

So okay, some things are just enough out of the way to be fun.  Monsters, for instance, in this case real monsters*, so herewith via THE UPWORTHY,  by James Gaines (from which the quote just above comes as well), “When a Giant Squid Appeared in the Harbor, this Man Grabbed a Camera and Jumped In.”  The view isn’t long, less than a minute, but it is included with other squid fun facts and it is close up.  And so, to see for oneself, press here.

.

*Cf. as well December 17, below.

First Sunday Prose Starts 2016 Writers Guild Reading Cycle

And came time Sunday for the Bloomington Writers Guild/Boxcar Books First Sunday Prose Reading, this month with featured writers Tony Brewer and Joan Hawkins and followed by the usual open mike session, but with a twist.  Two writers — Shayne Laughter and . . . moi — would be allowed ten minutes each, rather than the usual three-to-five.

So it began with poet, sometime radio play and screenwriter, and Writers Guild Chairman Brewer demonstrating that he sometimes writes stories too with an allegory of death and the afterlife (and vultures), “The Trouble with Boys” of young lust and death, and handy hints on tanning one’s deer hide.  The second of these also included an odd interruption, a noisy customer who dropped in to buy a book and, somehow in the course of the purchase, shared with all that he was a two-time rabies survivor.  Tony took this well in stride, though, and ended by introducing Joan Hawkins, fedora crowned, who read a piece from a memoir-in-progress, TALES OF SCHOOL AND SUICIDE.  This was about a marathon New Years Day poetry reading in New York’s Lower East Side in the early 2000s, the highlight of which was actress, director, and co-founder of The Living Theatre Judith Malina (1926-2015)* with a striking rendition of a scene from ANTIGONE.

Then we lesser lights had our time on the stage, starting with Shayne Laughter with the first part of a contemporary story-in-progress, “The Nature of the Beast,” related to her reading of the previous month of “Emmonsburg” (c.f. December 6), a story inspired by her grandfather’s writings about growing up in Indiana.  This was followed by a refreshment break, and then my “longer” short reading of a tale of the just-past holidays, “The Christmas Rat,” originally published in the Winter 2007-8 DOORWAYS and reprinted in THE TEARS OF ISIS, including showing copies of the illustrations used with its first publication, followed in turn by several more readings, the last introduced by poet-essayist Antonia Matthews as being probably “more wholesome” than mine.  (But then when I had finished my story, amongst the applause I thought I heard one person mention she was “glad Christmas is over” so, as I see it, I’d done my job. ;-) )

.

*Fun Fact:  Though perhaps best known for her work with The Living Theatre, Judith Malina also appeared in several movies including, in the role of “Grandmama,” 1991’s THE ADDAMS FAMILY.

First Contract of 2016 Signed and Mailed; Year’s First Mammoth Writing Payment Received

Two brief items for Saturday.  First I’d received the contract for my story “Chocolat” from Third Flatiron Publishing (cf. December 11, below) on New Year’s Eve which, today, I signed and put in the mail.  Third Flatiron does quarterly themed anthologies of which the one for spring, to be out in mid-February, is about small items with big consequences.  The title:  IT’S COME TO OUR ATTENTION.  And so my story, about a change in the European Union’s official definition of chocolate (this much is real!) and one horrific, if unlikely result.

And one more item, today I received the first of a probable string of several mammoth royalty payments for various past stories.  This one (I won’t say which publisher it’s from) arrived as a check for $0.68.  Yes, that’s sixty-eight cents — royalties for anthologies, for instance, get divided up among many authors.  But it’s the art, not the money that counts, right?  Or in any event, the writing life for the new year has begun.

Corpus Deluxe Rings Out the Old Year

It took two months from Kindle to its print edition, on December 21 by Amazon’s dating, but winging from there to my home mailbox, CORPUS DELUXE:  UNDEAD TALES OF TERROR (see December 22, October 28, et al.) arrived on New Year’s Eve.  Thus the last action of 2015, posted today, the first of 2016.  As for the book, my story in it, “River Red,” shares space with sixteen other short stories on ghosts and vampires and who knows what other no longer entirely alive things,  as well as a closing excerpt from a novel presumably to appear later from publisher Indy Authors Press.  I’ve only started to dip into it, but from the titles the tales seem quite interesting.  Also if I may say so myself, my own “River Red,” published originally in the Canadian professional anthology ESCAPE CLAUSE (Ink Oink Art Ink, 2009) and reprinted in THE TEARS OF ISIS, is itself worth the reading.

In honesty, though, I do have to admit to a few annoyances, perhaps indicative of a relatively inexperienced publisher.  For one,  the contents page lists the stories by title only, without the authors* — so if you’re like me and like to know which authors you might be familiar with already, you’ll just have to leaf through the book page by page.  And one thing that galls me specifically is an inconsistency in indicating prior publication of some (many?) of the stories.  The three preceding mine, for instance, have such attributions, but then mine doesn’t, even though the publisher did have the information.

That said, though, I am looking forward to some neat late-night reading, especially during the gloom of a new January’s winter.

.

*Weirdly, the author list wasn’t some kind of last-minute thing either, perhaps too late to send to the printer, as a contents listing with authors (albeit not in final order, and with one or two other glitches) was available at least seven weeks before.  See, e.g., the aforementioned post on this blog for October 28.

With Snow on the Ground Casey Surely Was Freezing in that Miniskirt, Though

One of my nieces, just before Christmas, posted a link to an article about how housecats are really none-too-stable predators and, if they were large enough, would probably kill us.  But we knew that already, didn’t we?  It’s part of their charm, like they’re little vampires.

Suppose, however, it wasn’t cats, but children.  One’s own children, perhaps, who at first seem to precipitate accidents — a misdirected sled sliding down a hill — but which escalate into causing real harm.  Or maybe just mischief, but which somehow turns lethal.

And suppose they’re doing this intentionally, intending to kill us.

If we were parents, could we believe the truth?  Or would we fight to believe, as the woundings and deaths pile up, that it has to be somebody else’s fault?

This is the premise of the British film THE CHILDREN (see “10 Films to Peruse for Your Christmas Holiday Watching Pleasure,” December 13):  “A family anticipates a Christmas filled with sledding, laughter and hot cocoa as they head to their vacation home in the secluded backcountry.  The holiday cheer takes a turn for the worse after a mysterious flu-like virus sweeps through the kids, and one by one the children become deadly.  Now, amidst suspicion, mayhem and murder, the parents must fight for survival against their own twisted offspring.”  And, oh yes, while police are called after the first actual death, the roads are hard to get through due to snow, so don’t expect them to arrive any too soon.

And remember, imagine that they’re your children — or maybe some of them nieces or nephews.  One flaw is that it is an extended family and there was some confusion, at least for me, keeping straight who’s related, and how, to whom.  Also, as a film of this sort probably must, it starts a bit on the slow side.

Nevertheless it becomes intense with, I think, the character of Casey as the key.  She’s the one teenage daughter, neatly caught between the two generations, who didn’t want to be there in the first place.  Rebellious, yes, but also the one who can be objective — who is first to figure out what’s going on — who through this begins to re-bond with her mom.  And it’s she who I found myself following.

Will she be able to keep her mom alive?  Will she survive?  There are loose ends aplenty — are those neighboring families’ children we see briefly at the end?  Is this ending up something like Hitchcock’s THE BIRDS?  But the focus by now is squarely on Casey and Mom, and. . . .

Well, the film’s not perfect, but for a different kind of night-after-Christmas horror — no demon Santas in this one — it makes for a delightfully creepy, subversive holiday package.

(While as for the piece on cats, press here.)

Dark of the Moon: Christmas Acceptance for Cthulhuesque Horror

Well, maybe not strictly Cthulhuesque.  The guidelines read, “Technology gone wrong.  Madmen  playing with science beyond their control.  Alien creatures with malign intent.  Welcome to DARK HORIZONS, where the future is lost.”  And the story I sent, “Dark of the Moon,” was a reprint originally published in THE CHILDREN OF CTHULHU (Del Rey, 2002), so maybe it’s not too far from that either.  Be that as it may, the word came back from editor/publisher Charles P. Zaglanis at 7:09 p.m. (EST?  PST?  does it matter?) on Christmas Day.  “Loved the story, please fill out and email the contract back to me.”

So Saturday, later today, I’ll see to the contract — and, gee, it’s like a Christmas present.  But then why not, I did get a rejection from someone else the day before, on Christmas Eve, which I suppose means that art knows no strict calendar-based boundaries.  Or is that commerce?

Be that as it may, DARK HORIZONS is to be published by Elder Signs Press and is currently scheduled for Fall 2016.  As such, it will be a companion volume to STREET MAGICK:  TALES OF URBAN FANTASY (cf. December 5), also due out in Fall 2016 and with my story “Bottles,” a vampire tale of late 1950s Cambridge Massachusetts (originally published in 2004 in CROSSINGS, by Double Dragon; appearing as well in THE TEARS OF ISIS).  Oddly, both stories also have something to do with Russia, “Bottles” with fear of the USSR in a Cold War setting and “Dark of the Moon” about a multi-national near-future lunar expedition told from the point of view of a female Russian crewmember.

And, of “Dark of the Moon,” an even worse fear.

“AND ON EARTH PEACE, GOOD WILL TOWARD MEN”