David Lee Summers's Blog, page 19

A Place Among the Dead

One of my Christmas presents this year was a signed copy of the Blu-Ray of the film A Place Among the Dead starring and directed by Juliet Landau, who is probably best know for her roles as Drusilla in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Loretta King in the movie Ed Wood. The film imagines fictionalized versions of Ms. Landau and her husband Deverill Weekes making a documentary examining a serial killer who has been operating around Santa Barbara, California. The movie starts off with Landau interviewi...

Revisiting Batman Returns

As a kid, I remember going to the store with my mom. While she shopped, I often went to the magazine rack to peruse the comic books. If I was very lucky and mom was feeling generous, I’d get to take one home with me. In those days, I loved any new Batman, Superman, or Spider-Man stories I could get my hands on. As with many kids, comic books somehow lost their appeal and became mere “kid’s stuff.” Fortunately, a good friend in high school never lost his love for the medium and introduced me to a...

Unveiling Ordeal of the Scarlet Order

The countdown to the release of my thirteenth novel, Ordeal of the Scarlet Order has commenced. The book will be released on February 13, 2024 but you can pre-order both the ebook and print book now. Also, there are some ways you can get the complete ebook early if you’d like, so be sure to read to the bottom of the post for the details. Here’s a look at the cover and the description:

The Scarlet Order vampires are on the run.

Rudolfo de Cordoba has led most of the Scarlet Order vam...

Gunpowder Geishas

Back in November, at TusCon, I had the opportunity to speak on a panel alongside Carolyn Kay. I’ve known Carolyn for several years and I’ve read and enjoyed her short stories, but I think this was the first time we’d actually spoken on the same topic. In this case, the topic was science fiction set not in the far reaches of space, but right here on Earth. She mentioned her newest novel, Gunpowder Geishas, a cyberpunk piece set in a Tokyo of the future. I thought it sounded like a blast, so I tho...

Passing the Baton

Last June, I read the first omnibus of Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden’s epic comic series Baltimore. It told the story of Lord Henry Baltimore who was attacked by a bat-like vampire while lying wounded on a field in World War I France. This started Baltimore on a quest to hunt vampires, which started feeding on the wounded and sick of war-torn Europe. After reading and enjoying the omnibus, I discovered that my local comic shop had a nice volume on the shelf called Lady Baltimore: The Witch...

The Riddle of the Sphinx

I am much younger than my brothers. When I was in elementary school, one of my brothers was already in college. One time, he sent me a coloring book that featured art taken from classical Greek vase paintings, depicting scenes from mythology. Those coloring books proved to be my introduction to such figures as Hercules, Medusa, and the harpies. Right on the cover was Oedipus confronting the sphinx. Now this sphinx fascinated me. At the time, I was old enough to be familiar with the Great Sphinx ...

Travels with the Dead in Space and Time

A good book cover can stick with you for a long time. I remember seeing Brian Lumley’s novel Necroscope on bookstore shelves around the time it came out in the United States circa 1986. Bob Eggleton’s cover featured a creepy skull with vampire fangs. I would have been in college at the time and I didn’t have much time for pleasure reading. Still, I’ve never forgotten that cover and Lumley would continue to haunt me. During my tenure publishing Hadrosaur Tales and Tales of the Talisman, one of my...

Weird Westerns for a New Year

I’ve been a fan of Weird Westerns ever since I first discovered the television show The Wild Wild West starring Robert Conrad and Ross Martin. I loved the idea of adding aliens, mad scientists, and maybe even some magic into the west. Later, I would discover comics like Jonah Hex and books like Stephen King’s The Gunslinger, which would increase my appreciation of the genre. Today, I’m highlighting three of Hadrosaur Productions’ Weird Western titles. The first is a short story collection by vet...

A Journey Worthy of the Angels

I hope you’re having a delightful holiday season! The title of today’s post is inspired by a scene in the first book of my Clockwork Legion series. In it, Fatemeh Karimi asks Ramon Morales how he celebrates Christmas. He mentions that his family sings songs and she asks him to teach her a song worthy of the angels. This is near the start of a great journey that will ultimately take them around the world in a quest to bring peace and healing where they can. Ramon and Fatemeh aren’t always angels,...

Have a Hybrid Holiday!

I met Greg Ballan during the time we were both published by Lachesis Publishing. When Lachesis decided not to take any new books for publication, I was fortunate to eventually acquire Greg’s Hybrid series for Hadrosaur Productions. This is a terrific series if you like superheroes. Of course, if you have a super-powered being, you have to challenge him with villains who push his powers to the limit. Greg does just that in this series.

As we approach Christmas, I have some extra special deals....