Jonathan Janz's Blog, page 30

Unveiling New Cover Art: SAVAGE SPECIES

And now…

Courtesy of the amazing artist Angela Waters and Samhain Horror, here’s the cover of my fourth novel:

*Cue Homer Simpson drool*

Yep. You’re looking at the main cover art for Savage Species. The formal announcement will come soon (probably tomorrow night), but for now, I thought y’all might like to see this baby (there will be six covers in all!).

This project marks a first for Samhain Horror. I’ll share more soon…

Musical Wisdom: “Time Is Love”

Okay. Confession time.

Are you ready for this one?

*takes deep breath…swallows the lump of nerves in his throat…exhales*

Okay. Here it goes.

I like country music.

Okay?! There, I said it!

Now before you all run screaming from the blog, let me clarify that statement. I like certain country singers and certain country songs (George Strait, above all). Honestly, I fell out of touch with all modern music oh, around the mid-nineties. If I hear anything new, it’s by pure happenstance.

Like the other night. I was having a basement dance party with my three little choppers (7, 5, and 2), and to find some music by which to groove we were surfing through the free cable channels on television. A song by Josh Turner called “Time Is Love” came on, and while I liked the tune, I loved the lyrics. My favorite part:

“I only get so many minutes

Don’t wanna spend ‘em all on the clock

In the time that we spent talkin’

How many kisses have I lost?”

Josh Turner Practicing What He Preaches (and look at the baby’s eyes on the left…I think he just read The Sorrows!)

And one more great bit:

“Time is love, gotta run

Love to hang out longer but I’ve got someone 

Who waits, waits for me and right now

She’s where I need to be, time is love, gotta run”

So there you have it. Pretty straightforward, but pretty supportive of my theory that we need to love our loved ones every moment that we can. It won’t surprise you that I think not only of my wife (and of course I think of her) when I listen to those lyrics but also of my children. Some say that time is money, and while I like money—too much, I’m sure—I love my family.

Time is indeed love. Here’s a link where you can hear the song…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fefu8tca4EY

Have yerselves a good night, pardners!

The First Review of THE DARKEST LULLABY…

Flop sweat. That’s a phrase I’d never heard before last week. Then I read a blog post by Jack Ketchum promoting I’m Not Sam in which the phrase “flop sweat” was used to describe the fear a writer has of having a book bomb, do badly, crash and burn, you get the picture. First of all, the fact that Jack Ketchum would ever worry about a book not doing well was heartening for me—it made me feel like I wasn’t such a cowering, quivering bundle of meekness masquerading as a confident writer. It also opened up a whole new realm of possibilities. If Ketchum gets flop sweat, I reasoned, that means that he must also eat, go to the bathroom, trim his eyebrow hairs, and generally do all the things I do. And while you might have known all these things already, I’m a notoriously slow learner and therefore never knew that a writing rock star/god/stud/master like Jack Ketchum had eyebrow hair. Or a bathroom.

So what does this have to do with me?

It’s because I breathed a giant sigh of relief this weekend. On Friday night, after getting the whipper snappers tucked in their beds and crib, I saw that The Horror Fiction Review had published a slew of March reviews. One of those was by Colleen Wanglund, and it put under the microscope my upcoming April release The Darkest Lullaby. Here are some highlights:

“This is a well-written novel with many grim twists and turns.”

“Character development is excellent.”

“Do yourself a favor and pick up this creepy and chilling book.”

One month until evil is reborn…

So like I said…*Whew!*

This doesn’t mean, of course, that every reader will like it. Like every book I’ll ever write, some will react to it and some won’t. I will say that my next several books will all be very different. The Darkest Lullaby is probably the darkest one I’ve ever written (fitting, huh?); it’s also, in some ways, the quietest. I want it to sneak up on the reader (unlike The Sorrows, which comes at you straight on, takes out an iron crowbar, and bashes you over the head). I want it to have a cumulative effect on the reader. I want it to be like a slow-moving indoor haunted house ride as opposed to a looping, thrashing roller coaster (again, see The Sorrows). The Darkest Lullaby is closer to House of Skin than The Sorrows, but it’s different than House of Skin as well. I’ll talk more about that later.

Soon after that, you’ll get Savage Species, which makes all of the above books look tame by comparison. Following that one, you’ll have Dust Devils, a vampire western that takes place in 1885 New Mexico. More on those two books soon…

One of my soon-to-be-purchased reads…

So I’ll leave you now with this thought: The Horror Fiction Review has been around for ten years now, and I think that says a lot about the people involved with it. Back in 2006 or so, a writer/reviewer named Nick Cato reviewed my very first novella Witching Hour Theatre. He responded positively to it, and that gave me a much-needed boost of confidence.

Thank you to Colleen and Nick for reading and writing about my work. Thank you to The Horror Fiction Review for sticking around for so long and for providing the genre with some stability. There’s something very edifying about seeing a place survive, which is one of the many reasons I love the Horror Drive-In and its awesome proprietor Mark Sieber. But that’s another post for another day.

Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to trim my eyebrows. I do that once every few years.

The Clearing of Travis Coble

In my recent blog post titled “The Coming Storm” I alluded to a convention, two novels, and a novella that are all happening in the next four months. I’m happy to say that I can finally share the details of my fourth novel…but that will have to wait until later this week.

What I can share now is the cover to my March novella, The Clearing of Travis Coble:

Ain’t she a beaut?

This vicious little novella comes to you courtesy of Untreed Reads, an outstanding San Francisco-based publisher which also brought you my wildly successful—and occasionally misunderstood—novella Old Order.

I’ll have a release date for you soon. For now, I’ll just say that if you don’t like horror, pleeeeaaase don’t buy The Clearing of Travis Coble. Okay, I guess you can buy it. Just don’t read it. Then we’ll both be happy.

And if you are a horror fan?

I’m guessing this will be something you’ll really enjoy.

‘Night, Friends!

HOUSE OF SKIN a Finalist for the Darrell Award!!!

Okay, so I’ve been sitting on a piece of news for a good long while now, and I thought I’d be able to share it yesterday…but I can’t yet. Painful for me, though probably merely annoying for you. No one likes a tease.

From the Mind of Charlaine Harris

But this morning I received a piece of good news that I wasn’t expecting. In fact, I’d all but forgotten about it because I didn’t think my novel had a chance. However…

The chairman of the Darrell Awards—presented every at the MidSouthCon in Memphis, Tennessee—emailed me to inform  me that my sophomore novel House of Skin has been selected by the jury as one of ten finalists for the Darrell Award, which is presented to the best Midsouth Science Fiction, Fantasy, and/or Horror Fiction of the Year. To be eligible for the award, the fictional work must have some connection to the Midsouth area, which includes Memphis (and the protagonist of my novel hails from Memphis!).

This Year’s Hall of Fame Inductee

The Hall of Fame Award at the MidSouthCon will be presented to none other than Justin Cronin (The Passage, The Twelve). Past winners of the Darrell Award include Charlaine Harris (creator of the True Blood books), Sherrilyn Kenyon, Nancy A. Collins, and last year, John Hornor Jacobs (for Southern Gods).

So…I’m excited! I always roll my eyes when folks at the Oscars say they’re just happy to be nominated. Well, now I can say—with not the slightest roll of my eyes—that I’m ecstatic to be nominated. Thank you, Darrell Awards Jury, for selecting House of Skin as a finalist. I’m truly honored!

The Coming Storm

No, this isn’t a post about Q or 006 or any other winter storm battering some unfortunate region of the country. This is about the next several months.

March, April, May, and June.

Four months. Two novels. One novella. And a convention.

The June novel, it should be stated, is atypical in many ways, and I’m not really supposed to talk much about it yet (I thought I’d capture a little of the mysterious feel of a Bond movie, okay?). But it’s definitely a novel.

April will bring my third Samhain Horror release, which is titled The Darkest Lullaby and bears some relationship to my first two novels (more on that before weekend’s end).

March will see the release of a brand-new version of my short novella The Clearing of Travis Coble. If you’re one of the eight or nine people who read it back when it was first released, the story is quite a bit different than it once was. For the other seven billion of you who’ve never heard of the tale…well, prepare for some darkness. The Clearing of Travis Coble is lean, dark, and vicious. In other words, I think horror fans will love it.

I’ll show you the cover of Travis Coble soon, but for now, here’s what The Darkest Lullaby looks like…

I’ll also be appearing at HorrorHound Cincinnati in March with four of my fellow Samhainers, as well as my dear friends Norman Reedus, Michael Madsen, and John Carpenter. Click the above link, scroll all the way down, and see the Samhain Horror banner with pictures of the five Samhain authors scheduled to attend.

I’m the one with my back to the camera. It’s best that way.

So you’ve been warned. There’s a storm on the horizon. And unless you’re Miss Moneypenny, you better…ah, never mind. Just read the books. And come to Cincinnati. (when I’m there!)

Are you gonna bark all day little doggy?

New Wag the Fox Interview…with me (Was that obvious?)

If you haven’t yet visited the Wag the Fox blog, you’re missing out. Not just because the proprietor there has reviewed my first two novels and has been extremely kind to me, but because it’s simply a reliably awesome place to frequent.

Interviewed by the Fox!

But today there’s a new interview with me on there, and I thought y’all might like to check it out. Gef asks some excellent questions, and I do my best to not sound like a blithering idiot. And whether I succeed or not, isn’t it worth a couple minutes to hear about my upcoming novel THE DARKEST LULLABY? Or to hear such wonderful authors as Stephen King, Peter Straub, Shirley Jackson, Edgar Allan Poe, and Ira Levin discussed? Or perhaps just to make me feel loved?

Rolling toward bookstores in April!

Naw. Go with the first reason. Or perhaps the second. As for my feeling loved, that part’s covered. I went out to dinner with the wife tonight for an early Valentine’s celebration. You know, one of those places where you pay a lot of money for the ambience and the protracted descriptions of the night’s specials? The same kind of place where you pay a ton of money for mediocre food divvied out in meager portions and end up craving drive-thru on the way home?

Well, this one was actually pretty decent, and I didn’t have to liquidate my firstborn’s college fund to pay for it. So there’s that. And…

What was my point?

Oh yeah. The interview. Here’s the link.

Enjoy!

Join Us at The Mortuary for the February Book of the Month: HOUSE OF SKIN

Come Join the Party!

Hey, all. Very short and not so sweet tonight. I’ve got to edit novel #5 and get to bed at some point between now and the morning. So come on over to The Mortuary if you get the chance; the great folks over there have made HOUSE OF SKIN their February Book of the Month. We’ve already discussed some great things—Richard Matheson’s HELL HOUSE, Shirley Jackson’s THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE, the work of Richard Laymon, the influences of Peter Straub and Stephen King on my work, several movies, and a whole lot more.

The February Feast

The Mortuary, Taking Over Taiwan, and Alan Spencer

Ni hao! Apparently, that’s how they say hello over in Taiwan…or at least, according to Wikipedia, that’s how over sixty percent of the population says it. I’m not sure about the other forty percent, but I suspect their greeting has something to do with textiles (one of the nation’s major industries!).

Three very cool events have occurred over the past several days that I wanted to share. The first is that the awesome folks over at The Mortuary have named my sophomore novel HOUSE OF SKIN their February Book of the Month Club read. I’ve been lurking over there for months and have found several great reads via their book club. That’s caused me to feel seething jealousy toward other authors a fervent desire to have my book chosen for  a group read, so the fact that they’re doing HOUSE OF SKIN is very cool news indeed.

Unleashed in The Mortuary!

The SECOND piece of cool news is that some other Samhain Horror authors and I have become cult heroes in Taipei. Okay, maybe not, but one of the awesome people at Samhain sent me a tweet that featured THE SORROWS in a Tapei store. And since I can’t figure out how to post a tweeted pic, here’s the logo of some Taiwanese textile show:

Acronym Submitted without Comment

Okay, so perhaps I’m not going to be offered the key to the city of Taipei any time soon, and no, I haven’t yet received a fan letter in Mandarin…but still, it was neat to see the global reach of Samhain.

And finally, I was pleased to learn that fellow author Alan Spencer named HOUSE OF SKIN one of his favorite reads of 2012. Alan is a great guy and a heck of a writer whose work you can check out right here.

So that wraps it up. There are several updates on the horizon and loads of big news to share soon, but for now, I’ll say, “Zai jian!” (accent marks omitted because I don’t know how to make them in WordPress…or in any other software, for that matter…could a brother get a little help here? Anybody? PLEASE?!?!)

Taipei City: The Site of My Next Reading

Norman Reedus and THE WALKING DEAD

Howdy, friends! I blogged at the Samhain Horror website today and figured some of you Norman Reedus/The Walking Dead fans might be interested in giving it a read. If you’re not interested, I’ll put a crossbow bolt through your head no problem! We’re all pals here, right?

The link is below the picture….

https://www.samhainpublishing.com/2013/01/norman-reedus-and-the-walking-dead/