Paul Roberts's Blog, page 2

BURNING AMBER

Hell just needed a spark.

Amber Savarin, a UCLA Ecology major, braves the heart of a forest fire to save her ailing mother.

Pursued by a crazed priest and his devout followers, she unearths crimes and legends more terrifying than the fire itself.

See the book trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLmxfMPzELY

Cover painting by Jef Whitehead.

Psychros review

Horror After Dark has reviewed Psychros: http://www.horrorafterdark.com/2014/0...

Tribute to Michael Shea

Mike Davis, editor of The Lovecraft eZine, hosted a wonderful chat with authors Cody Goodfellow, Joe Pulver, John Langan, Pete Rawlik, and Rick Lai. Joining these writers was reader and reviewer Matthew Carpenter. These gentlemen paid tribute to the extraordinary talent of author Michael Shea

The entire segment is available on YouTube: http://bit.ly/1qpZcll

I especially enjoyed the personal stories, particularly the Goodfellow tale of Shea's deft handling of a bus antagonist. Great stuff.

For any readers unaware of Shea, he was a top-of-the-food-chain weird, sci-fi, horror, fantasy writer that defied classification. Seek and devour all his work - for he was truly one of the greats. http://www.michaelsheaauthor.com

Best Horror Collections of 2013

The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All ~ Laird Barron
Featuring two of the finest contemporary hunting stories I’ve read, Barron’s third collection is best consumed near a healthy fire and filtered through a decent scotch. I’m convinced there is a tsunami of readers that have yet to discover Barron. “More Dark” could be the most misunderstood story this year. With teeth, it plants Laird’s flag at the summit, and in deft contrasting brush strokes, succeeds in paying tribute whilst offering challenge to writers and readers alike. It doesn’t get better than this.

The Wide Carnivorous Sky & Other Monstrous Geographies ~ John Langan
Barron’s arm wrestling partner is the master of reinventing overused horror tropes (zombies, werewolves and vampires). Langan’s tale, “The Revel” is IMHO the greatest werewolf story put to print. John is simply the most entertaining horror writer working today. One of my reading highlights of 2013, was to re-read Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death”, down a glass of Jameson and consume “Technicolor” in all its insidious glory. Langan is a true heavyweight. I ran out and bought his previous collection, “Mr. Gaunt”. And yes, it is fantastic.

At Fear’s Altar ~ Richard Gavin
Canadian Richard Gavin is a true original. His stories are simply magical and contain a strange psychedelic otherness that is hard to pinpoint. “The Abject” would make a beautiful short film; its eclipse vista is one of the prevailing images painted on my mind after a healthy year of reading. “The Eldritch Faith” is a monumental work. I immediately bought Gavin’s other collections: “Omens” and “Charnel Wine”. “The Darkly Splendid Realm” remains on my hunting list; it is out-of-print and one can only hope 2014 provides a scent trail.

The Grimscribe’s Puppets ~ edited by Joseph S. Pulver Sr.
“The Secrets of the Universe” by Michael Cisco contains enough brilliant ideas to fuel a novel. Stories by Livia Llewellyn, Cody Goodfellow, Richard Gavin, John Langan and (the late) Joel Lane are worth the modest price of admission. Pulver, a fantastic writer himself, has collected a wonderful tribute to Ligotti. I can only wonder though, in a meta-conspiracy-rumour fugue, whether Laird Barron’s “More Dark” was submitted. Shame on me.

The Best Horror of the Year Vol. 5 ~ edited by Ellen Datlow
As both a writer and a reader, I owe a debt of gratitude to Ellen Datlow. Her 2007 non-themed anthology “Inferno” introduced me to the renaissance in today’s horror field. Her yearly summation will get you caught up on what you missed and she consistently draws my attention to stories I might otherwise have ignored. Stories by: Nathan Ballingrud, Terri Dowling, Lucy A. Snyder and the aforementioned Richard Gavin and Laird Barron are all standouts.