Brian Keene's Blog, page 156

The Magus at 45

Leaving tomorrow morning for Las Vegas and Killercon. Hope to see some of you there. I’ll turn 45 during the convention — on Saturday, in fact. I intend to celebrate by having a few drinks with Jack Ketchum, Edward Lee, F. Paul Wilson, Carlton Mellick, Wrath James White, Maurice Broaddus, and some other friends, followed by breakfast the next morning with Gene O’Neill. There are worse ways to spend the official transition into middle age.

I had a rough time with 30, a rougher time with 35, and an absolute soul-wrenching time with 40, but I’m okay with 45. I think once you pass the 40 mark, you learn to make your peace with it and accept things. I was reading Fear Net’s excellent review of Alone yesterday, and one line that really struck me was this: “Keene is entering the middle age of his career, and he no longer needs to shout to be heard. He’s discovered the power of restraint, and demonstrates it with his understanding of the way a silent, empty house can be just as terrifying as a horde of gut-munching zombies.” That pretty much sums things up. That is what it feels like to turn 45. (And thanks to Blu Gilliand for saying in a review of my book what I’m trying – and failing – to properly articulate here).

I’ve led a hard life, but I’ve also had a damn good run. I’ve got two happy and healthy sons, and I make a lot of people happy with the words I write. Every day I live past this point is just gravy. I’m looking forward to enjoying the time that’s left.

Anyway, things won’t be updated here until middle of next week. While I’m gone, keep in mind that Earthworm Gods II: Deluge and Sundancing are still available in hardcover (less than 30 copies left). Entombed and An Occurrence in Crazy Bear Valley are available in paperback. Alone and Scratch are available now for Kindle, Nook, and Kobo. And issue #1 of The Last Zombie: Before the After – featuring two different covers – is on sale in comic shops.

Okay. I’m off to spend some time with my youngest son and Mary, and work on The Lost Level and Hole In The World before flying out tomorrow. If you need me, hit me up on Twitter or my message board. And if you’re going to be in Vegas this weekend, please do say “Hi”. Deadite Press will have plenty of my books there for purchase, and you are also welcome to bring along things to be signed.

As always, if you keep reading them, I’ll keep writing them. F.U.K.U.

Killercon Schedule

Here’s my schedule for Killercon in Las Vegas this weekend.

FRIDAY:

11:00am: Opening Ceremonies

2:00pm: “It’s The End of The World As We Know It”: Dystopian Fiction and the appeal of the Apocalypse. Moderator: Lincoln Crisler, Panelists Maurice Broaddus, Brian Keene, William Nolan

4:00pm: “You’re Doing It All Wrong!” How we are all fucking up the genre and what we can do to fix it. Opinions from our guests of honor! Moderator: John Skipp, Panelists: Don D’Auria, F. Paul Wilson, Jack Ketchum, Kelley Armstrong, Brian Keene, Edward Lee.

7:00pm: “The Book Was So Much Better!” Film Adaptations of Books. Do they always suck? What are the good ones and why do some work and others? Moderator: L.L. Soares, Panelists: Jack Ketchum, Brian Keene, Edward Lee, and William F. Nolan, John Skipp, James Roy Daley

SATURDAY:

1:00pm: Reading by Brian Keene

4:00pm: Signing

10:00pm: Gross-Out Contest Sponsored by Deadite Press!

SCRATCH now on Kindle, Nook, and Kobo

A few weeks ago, I stepped into the world of digital self-publishing with ALONE — a quiet, supernatural novella available on Kindle, Nook, and Kobo.

Today, I’m happy to announce that my giant snake novella, SCRATCH, is now available in the same format. Previously only available as a hardcover limited edition, it is now ready for purchase via Kindle, Nook, and Kobo for only $2.99. This edition also includes a bonus short story – “Halves”.

Buy it!

BULLETTIME

My friend and sometime collaborator (on The Damned Highway and various Internet hijinks) Nick Mamatas has a new novel out called Bullettime. It’s available in paperback, Kindle, Nook, and Kobo. You should buy it, if only to hold you over until we get around to finishing our re-telling of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

NINE NEW RELEASES

Click the cover to purchase

That Thing in the Water: Guest Blog by Jack Ketchum

Jack Ketchum is in the middle of a Blog tour to promote his new book I’M NOT SAM (co-written with Lucky McKee). Monday saw him at LitReactor. Yesterday took him to Mary SanGiovanni’s website. Today, he’s here to talk to my readers. Jack Ketchum is one of my favorite writers but he’s also been a dear friend and mentor to me for over 15 years. Indeed, we’re it not for his efforts and those of Richard Laymon, I would have never sold my first novel, The Rising, and you and I would not be here together right now. So pull up a bar stool and listen to what the man has to say.

THAT THING IN THE WATER

By Jack Ketchum

I’m often asked, “what really scares you?” And my answer is usually something along the lines of you do. Meaning that I have no idea, really, what you’re capable of, and that I’m fully aware that beneath that placid exterior or shit-eating grin you might be the kind of guy who keeps a six-year-old tied up in your basement.

But there’s also the terrible unexpected.

I was walking down Broadway one sunny spring afternoon on my way home from Love Cosmetics or Gartner’s Hardware or somewhere and I’d just stepped up over the curb onto the sidewalk at 70th Street when an entire chest of drawers hit the sidewalk three feet in front of me. It sort of bounced once and then toppled over on its side like a king on a chessboard in checkmate. Only a fuck of a lot bigger.

A nice wooden chest of drawers. Ever fire a shotgun? It sounded a little like that.

Turned out it came from three floors above me. Some movers were working in an apartment with a floor-length window and somebody backed into the thing. It had done a three-sixty roll in mid-air and landed on its feet.

I nearly lost mine.

Know what? Your legs really can turn to jelly. Your heart really can skip a beat.

A couple of beats.

One more step and you wouldn’t be reading this, folks.

Was I scared? Fuck, yes. And was I mad? You haven’t seen mad.

They say there’s never a cop around when you need one but I guess I got lucky because I turned around to head for 72nd Street, my best bet to find one — and a squad car materialized right across from the subway station. I told them what happened and they drove over and shut the whole operation down right away. I calmed down and walked home and went about my business.

But was I disturbed? Hell, yes. Disturbed by definition. I felt interfered with. Intruded upon.

My easy-going day had damn near been my last one.

It’s a sobering experience, the kind some of you may have had under other circumstances. Here’s a piece from I’M NOT SAM, edited slightly so as not to give too much away.

“I’m halfway through my first beer when I see the snake.

The beer hits the deck and I’m up on my feet with the rake in my hands and it’s coming toward her, its body a black undulating streak in the water behind a raised head as it rises over a drifting branch and she doesn’t see it, doesn’t even know it’s there and I’m yelling Get out of the water! Get out of the water NOW! and she hears the panic in my voice and looks confused but starts swimming anyway, Sam’s powerful stroke, yet the damn thing’s gaining on her, no more than ten feet away.”

The terrible unexpected. In a river, on a corner in New York City.

Anywhere.

UNRELATED QUESTION: What’s the story with this “the last girl standing” all the time? THE EVIL DEAD aside, why can’t we have a storyline with the last guy standing once in a while? Why should it always be Sigourney Weaver? A lot of us fellas are sensitive and smart too, y’know? We could save Jonesy.

I’M NOT SAM by Jack Ketchum & Lucky McKee can be purchased from Cemetery Dance and Sinister Grin Press. For more info about the author, please visit his website or follow him on Twitter. Check out our contest giveaway!

And here’s our I’M NOT SAM 2012 Blog Tour Schedule. Have fun!

Tour Stop 1: 9/10 at LitReactor

Tour Stop 2: 9/11 at Mary SanGiovanni

Tour Stop 3: 9/12 at Brian Keene

Tour Stop 4: 9/13 at Bookgasm

Tour Stop 5: 9/14 at Tom Piccirilli

Raven Banner Entertainment takes DARK HOLLOW

From The Hollywood Reporter: “Raven Banner Entertainment has taken the horror pic Dark Hollow by director Paul Campion for world sales… Special-makeup effects giant Weta Workshop in New Zealand is also attached to Dark Hollow, which is slated for production in spring 2013.”

Like the Dark Hollow movie page on Facebook!

ENTOMBED and AN OCCURRENCE IN CRAZY BEAR VALLEY – On Sale Now!

Paperback editions of Entombed (the long-awaited follow-up to Dead Sea) and An Occurrence in Crazy Bear Valley are both on sale now! Click the covers above to order. (Digital editions forthcoming next month).

ENTOMBED:

There are things much worse than zombies…

First time in paperback!

In the long-awaited follow up to DEAD SEA, it has been several months since the disease known as Hamelin’s Revenge decimated the world. Civilization has collapsed and the dead far outnumber the living. The survivors seek refuge from the roaming zombie hordes, but one-by-one, those shelters are falling.

Twenty-five survivors barricade themselves inside a former military bunker buried deep beneath a luxury hotel. They are safe from the zombies… but are they safe from one another? As supplies run low and despair sets in, each of them will find out just how far they’re willing to go to survive.

Brian Keene’s ENTOMBED… when the dead walk the earth, insanity is the only escape.

AN OCCURRENCE IN CRAZY BEAR VALLEY:

Strap on your six-guns and saddle up for a shoot-out against a horde of angry Sasquatch, zombies, dinosaurs, and more. The Old West has never been weirder or wilder than it has in the hands of master horror writer Brian Keene.

Morgan and his gang are on the run–from their pasts and from the posse riding hot on their heels, intent on seeing them hang. But when they take refuge in Crazy Bear Valley, their flight becomes a siege as they find themselves battling a legendary race of monstrous, bloodthirsty beings. Now, Morgan and his gang aren’t worried about hanging. They just want to live to see the dawn.

Deadite Press is proud to present Brian Keene’s An Occurrence in Crazy Bear Valley for the first time in paperback. Also includes the bonus short story “Lost Canyon of the Damned”.

THE LAST ZOMBIE: BEFORE THE AFTER #1 – On Sale Now!

The first issue of Before the After – the latest installment in The Last Zombie series – is on sale now. This first issue features two covers. The one to your left is by Mike Hawthorne (Conan, The Un-Men), and the one below it is by series regular Joe Wight. Both should be at your local comic store right now. If your local comic store doesn’t have them, you can order the comics direct from the publisher by simply clicking the cover images.

This new five-issue story-arc is easily the most important in the series, thus far. We’ve purposely kept the pre-ordering descriptions vague in order to avoid spoilers. Suffice to say, by the time Before the After #5 rolls around, nothing will be the same for our cast. Big changes are in store, and they start here. And it all leads into the penultimate next storyline — Eat the Rich!

If you’re new to The Last Zombie, you can purchase all of the back issues, as well as the first three trade paperback collections, by clicking HERE.

And if you’re going to be at the Baltimore Comic Con this weekend, stop by Booth 1804 and see me. I’ll have plenty of copies of The Last Zombie (as well as other comics) to sign.

Suddenly, on the Internet…

Blu Gilliand did a quickie interview with me that you can read here. And… here is the official KeeneCon Twitter page. Don’t make plans for Summer 2014.