James Dorr's Blog, page 161

Just a Quick Note: For the Very Fast, the Once Bitten Book Launch

Well it’s actually been out for some time as we know (cf. just below, August 11, 10), I’ve even received a .PDF copy through Editor Steve Lewis’s kindness, but for those who’d enjoy a virtual party, the ONCE BITTEN Book Launch Facebook gala proceeds as we speak. To join in the fun, one need but press here. But best be quick about it, it probably will end at midnight or so, and that’s British time which will make it even earlier here!

One will probably even have to supply one’s own ice cream and cake, but for one small surprise, herewith repeated a “sample” post I dropped off at the party, a micro-excerpt from my story “Bernice” (cf. below, August 11, 10):

The sun suddenly shone, peeping out between clouds. The autumns, and late summers too, had been damp of late, the winters snowy, which Bernice would say was a side effect of global warming. He would nod at her those times. “Perhaps,” he would tell her.

He heard the minister clear his throat again, thought better of the kiss, and started to lift himself when something gleamed. Just for a moment, some motion, some thing in the shadowed space between the white, ruffled satin pillow and Bernice’s shoulder.

A mouse in the coffin?

Interested? For more information (and, perchance, to buy?), one may check here.

More on Poe, Once Bitten, and a Lady Named Bernice

Kudos to Steve Lewis (see just below) who, at my request, has just sent Kindle-less me a .pdf for my author’s copy of the electronic version of ONCE BITTEN.  Many thanks!  But also it occurred to me that I hadn’t mentioned yesterday that my story “Bernice” was a reprint, as noted in the earlier of the prior posts I cited, nor that there was another, yet older post about the story in its initial incarnation.  Plus a bit more about Poe as a muse — at least sometimes for me!

So, once again to the wayback machine to December 27 2011. . . .

Once upon a time I wrote two stories inspired by works of Edgar Allan Poe.  The first, “Merryl,” which tips its hat to “Ligeia” has just been published in the anthology IN POE’S SHADOW (see Oct. 29, et al.).  Today the second, “Bernice,” which mixes the teeth of Poe’s “Berenice” (note European spelling) with swarms of rodents and a cat named Cher (“a black, sleek, slinky cat — next year he thought he might get a tom so she could have kittens”), arrived in my mailbox in the Fall issue of INHUMAN.  INHUMAN, a.k.a. ALLEN K’S INHUMAN, is edited and illustrated by Allen Koszowski, an artist of surreal and horror subjects for about as many years as I’ve been writing.  In fact we first met when we were paired as author and illustrator in WRITERS OF THE FUTURE, VOL. VIII, way back in 1992 with a story of mine called “Subterranean Pests.”  The illustration he did for that was of zombie moles; the one for “Bernice” is of killer mice.

“And the beat goes on.”

And thus a bit more about “Bernice” as well, to perhaps whet appetites?

Bernice, Once Bitten Out from Britain’s KnightWatch Press

Ah, those British!  The acceptance for this one came late on Edgar Allan Poe’s birthday and was announced here the morning after — or at least the day after:  My story “Bernice” was to be published in KnightWatch Press’s anthology ONCE BITTEN (see February 3, January 20).  “Think of love turned sour, or love that works well in extraordinary circumstances,” said the guidelines.  “As long as it combines a thematic element of love in a horror story, that’s all we ask.”  And hence my tale, itself very loosely based on Edgar Allan Poe’s (aha!) “Berenice” (the old-timey, sometime English spelling, with an extra “e”), of lost love and non-vampire women . . . and teeth.

Today’s email brought word from Editor Steve Lewis that ONCE BITTEN is now available on Amazon in print and Kindle. To sample the blurb:  “While the bright light of day banishes lesser horrors, it only makes love gone wrong stand out all the more. When that love is driven by the demented, the unnatural and the straight-out evil, the bright light of day might be the last thing you need.  Or see.  In Once Bitten, 15 authors show us that the sweetest of emotions, mixed with a touch of darkness and more than a hint of the supernatural, can be a bitter, bitter cup from which to drink.”

To see for yourself, or perchance to order, one need but to press here.

Devilish Doings: Lobster Boy Accepted for Erebus Press Anthology

It sounded interesting, if not high paying, and reprints were okay.  The title is HOW TO TRICK THE DEVIL, but stories didn’t have to be literally about Satan.  “Deception plays a large role in folklore, fairy tales and mythology.  The hero will often use trickery to best their opponents, marry the princess, win treasure, or achieve the upper hand.  Many tricksters end up with happy endings — think Hansel and Gretel, or Puss in Boots — but sometimes they only find punishment or loss.”  So said the guidelines.

“Dark fairy tales, bizarre, horror, surrealism, dark science-fiction and steam punk are all cool here.”

So I sent them a reprint originally published in CYBER PULP’S HALLOWEEN ANTHOLOGY 2.0 (Cyber Pulp, 2003 — also in WELCOME TO YOUR NIGHTMARE:  AN ANTHOLOGY OF SCARY STORIES, cf. October 13 2013), “Lobster Boy and the Hand of Satan,” a saga of scams and carnival “trick-or-treat” connivers, for which the answer came today from Editor Stephaine Buosi:  “I am pleased to inform you that we have accepted your short story ‘Lobster Boy,’ to be included in Erebus Press’s upcoming anthology. . . .”

It may not be much, but, hey, an acceptance is an acceptance.  And this one could be fun.

Chilling Ghost Author Biographies Published

No, no, these are not ghost writers.  Rather they are the authors of the (more or less) modern stories in Flame Tree Publishing’s still on schedule mix of contemporary and classic CHILLING GHOST SHORT STORIES (cf. June 21, et al.).  You saw the contents (July 31), you saw the criteria (via link at bottom, July 31), now see who the still-living contributors are, including (ahem) me with the story “Victorians,” by pressing here.

My tale, incidentally, is itself the oldest of the “moderns,” having originally been published in GOTHIC GHOSTS by Tor Books nearly two decades ago, in 1997.  Several more are reprints from the past six years of the current century, while thirteen stories will have been published here for the first time.

Speaking of Energy — Whether It Would Work or Not, What a Neat Science Fiction Idea!

This is from Angie Aker via UPWORTHY.COM (so I keep getting these interesting emails), with the somewhat clunky title “First We had Windmills.  Then Wind Turbines.  Now it’s Time to Meet the Windwheel” (subheaded “Those Delightfully Zany Dutch have Done it Again!”).  What can one say?  But for a peek at what might be next to be denounced by coal-burning lobbyists before Congress, please to press here.  Or perhaps for a look from the horse’s mouth (with wonderful illustrations too), here.

Beating the Heat the Natural Way (though of Course One Could Still Read a Chilling Story)

Full disclosure:  I was born in the South and, even if living farther north, we visited relations in Florida, Alabama, etc., every summer.  Yes, summer.  And those were the days when home air conditioning was still a rarity.  Then one more factoid, I don’t use air conditioning in my house — don’t like it that much — although in past summers when heat got high, I’ve once or twice made note here on movies to watch to help think cool thoughts at night.

One example, perhaps, is SNOWPIERCER, about a mutiny on a train that travels endlessly around a future, frozen Earth (the result of a panicky last-hour reaction to global warming involving, as I recall, putting chaff in orbit for shade from the sun).  But while some of the effects are neat, the movie when everything is considered is kind of dopey — still worth a watch if it gets on TV, but. . . .  For others, scroll down to June 29 2012 (itself a rerun from the previous summer, posted July 12 2011) for “Frigid Films for those 90-Degree Nights,” an international triple-header review of FREEZE ME, L’ICEBERG, and THE HOLY MOUNTAIN (including, for classic science fiction fans, an extra mention of WOMAN IN THE MOON).

For those who might still need more, however, for blood to run cold, as a change of pace I’ve just run across a practical piece by Lori White on UPWORTHY.COM, “Top 5 Signs Your Ancestors Were Geniuses at Beating the Heat,” for which press here.  Although this year(more full disclosure) we’ve actually had a fairly cool summer where I am, thus far.

Ill-Conceived Expedition Proofs Sent Back; New First Sunday Season Begins — Plus Art Fair Announcement

So this was my weekend.  Up till the wee hours of Saturday night/Sunday morning poring over changes to my ILL-CONCEIVED EXPEDITIONS story, “Ice Vermin” (cf. July 23, March 10, January 13), then sending the corrections back to Editor Neil Baker.  In most cases I was content to let things pass — after all it is a reprint, also available in my 2007 collection DARKER LOVES:  TALES OF MYSTERY AND REGRET for those who might wish to compare with the “author’s cut” for themselves — but there were about six items that needed either to be changed back or reworded for sake of consistency, character, or technicalities.  That said, however, from the contents it looks like a winner and, hopefully, still will be out on schedule by month’s end.

Then today brought the new “season’s” opening of the Bloomington Writers Guild/Boxcar Books sponsored First Sunday Prose Readings (cf. May 3, et al.).  Featured writers were Richard H. Durisen with an other-worldly science fiction piece, “The Long Cold” (Durisen also, I might add, has published poetry in several magazines we’ve seen mentioned here, notably DISTURBED DIGEST and ILLUMEN); Annette Oppenlander with an excerpt from her just-out second historical novel, ESCAPE FROM THE PAST — THE DUKE’S WRATH, “about a nerdy teen who, trying out an experimental computer game, unwittingly time-travels to medieval Germany”; and Jim Stark with an excerpt from GREAT LAKES SKIPPER, also a historical novel in this case based on the life of his own great-great-great grandfather.  These were followed by five open-mike readers, of whom I took the number four spot with a deconstructed fairytale, “The Glass Shoe” on what really went on with Cinderella, originally published in 2011 in Pink Nacissus Press’s RAPUNZEL’S DAUGHTERS AND OTHER TALES (cf. July 3, January 5 2011).

There will not, however, be an official First Sunday reading for September this year, that also being the weekend for Bloomington’s Fourth Street Festival of the Arts and Crafts, with the Writers Guild presenting readings there on the Spoken Word Stage (see August 30 2014, et al.).  This was announced along with a preliminary schedule of half-hour readings, both poetry and prose, with mine being billed as “horror fiction” for 4 p.m. Sunday, September 6.  While I haven’t completely decided, I’m leaning toward a presentation entirely from THE TEARS OF ISIS (last year I featured one story, “River Red,” but with two others from other sources), possibly even including another tale of Cinderella.

Chilling Ghost Stories Authors Officially Unveiled

Flame Tree Publishing Editor Gillian Whitaker has officially announced the contents of their upcoming anthology CHILLING GHOST SHORT STORIES (cf. July 22, 6, June 21).  One of three, to quote their blurb, “collectable Gothic Fantasy anthologies, deluxe hardcover editions on Horror, Ghosts and Science fiction, each carry a potent mix of classic tales and new fiction, tracing the path of the thrilling tale from the early gothic to the modern fantastic.”  The book itself is expected to be available in the US by about the end of August.

So to cut to the chase, the chilling ghost stories selected are:

“Mourners by Kurt Bachard

Stay Away from the Accordion Girl by Jonathan Balog

Audio Tour by Trevor Boelter

Ghost Farm by Zach Chapman

The Return of Gunnar Kettilson by Vonnie Winslow Crist

Flaming Fuses by Donna Cuttress

The House, the Garden, and Occupants by Amanda C. Davis

Victorians by James Dorr

The Figure on the Sidewalk by Tim Foley

The Waiting Room by Philip Brian Hall

An Englishman in St. Louis by Raymond Little

Death and Champagne by Luke Murphy

Lost Souls by Jeff Parsons

The Skeleton Crew by Michael Penkas

Songs for the Lost by Brian Rappatta

An Unquiet Slumber by Rhiannon Rasmussen

Almost by M. Regan

The Bulge in the Wall by Annette Siketa

The Psychic Fair by Cathy Smith

Unclaimed by Lesa Pascavis Smith

“These new authors will sit alongside the great and intriguing classic stories of E.F. Benson, Robert W. Chambers, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle, Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman, Nikolai Gogol, Washington Irving, W.W. Jacobs, Henry James, M.R. James, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Edith Nesbit, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson, Edith Wharton, Oscar Wilde.”

More information including lineups for Flame Tree’s companion volumes CHILLING HORROR SHORT STORIES and SCIENCE FICTION SHORT STORIES can be found here, with a more detailed peek into the editorial process available here.

Ten Classic Science Fiction Novels One Should Actually Read

Well, this is more a horror site than science fiction which may explain why I , too, haven’t read (at least all the way through) a majority of these, but I don’t really claim to have read them all either.  However as August approaches, for summer lazy-day reading pleasure, perhaps one might pick a few on the assumption they’ll not only be fun but worth one’s while.

As compiler Charlie Jane Anders explains it:  “Science fiction and fantasy offer a rich legacy of great books — but that abundant pile of reading material can also be daunting.  So sometimes, it’s easier to fake it. We asked some of our favorite writers, and they told us the 10 books that everyone pretends to have read.  And why you should actually read them.

“From Asimov to Pynchon, science fiction contains some fantastic, ambitious works of genre fiction.  But a lot of us get overwhelmed.  And it’s not that hard to fake a first-hand knowledge of these books, because they’re everywhere, and we’ve heard people talk about them so many times.  We SF fans are good at pretending.  But these books are classics for a reason — and they’re worth reading.”

The list itself is from IO9.COM and, truth to tell, I just happened to blunder across it on Facebook.  Regardless, press here.