David Lee Summers's Blog, page 28

Johnny Alucard

I have been continuing my read of the Anno Dracula series and today, I take a look at the fourth book, Johnny Alucard. The series asks what would have happened if Count Dracula escaped Dr. Van Helsing at the end of Bram Stoker’s famous novel and married Queen Victoria, thus bringing vampires into public view for the first time in history. The series has been full of allusions to famous literary and screen vampires along with pop culture icons of the various time periods visited. In the previous ...

Read a Steampunk eBook

Happy Read an Ebook Week! You can find my steampunk novels available now at @Smashwords at a promotional price to help you celebrate. Find my books and many more at https://www.smashwords.com/ebookweek from March 5-11! Because I’m at Wild Wild West Con this weekend, I’m offering my Clockwork Legion novels for just 99 cents apiece. If you’ve ever wanted to explore my steampunk worlds, this is a great time to jump in!

Owl Dance

The year is 1876, Sheriff Ramon Morales of Socorro, Ne...

Read a Horror eBook

Happy Read an Ebook Week! You can find my horror novels available now at @Smashwords at a promotional price to help you celebrate. Find my books and many more at https://www.smashwords.com/ebookweek from March 5-11! As I’ve mentioned here at the Web Journal, I’ve been working on a third volume of my Scarlet Order vampire series. The first two volumes are just 99 cents this week. I’ve also added in my novel The Astronomer’s Crypt for some extra-spooky goodness.

Dragon’s Fall: Rise of th...

Wild Wild West Con 11

This weekend, Wild Wild West Con returns! It will be held from March 9-12 at Casino Del Sol in Tucson, Arizona. Wild Wild West Steampunk Convention (WWWC) is the largest Western-style Steampunk Convention in the United States. I’ve been excited to be part of the convention since it started in 2011. With a splendid lineup of Special Guests, entertainers, panels and games, the convention organizers are planning an amazing event unlike any other. This is a great event for people who are new to Stea...

Finding the Lost Boys

My university was in the small town of Socorro, New Mexico. We had one small theater called the Loma, which usually showed movies a few months after their release. In the autumn of 1987, I went with a group of friends to see the Joel Schumacher film, The Lost Boys, starring Kiefer Sutherland, Jason Patric, and Jami Gertz. I was deep in the throes of working on my physics degree and much more into movies about exploring the galaxy than about vampires. I remember finding the movie a fine diversion...

Darke Pygmalion

The Chronicles of a Mad Lab Assistant: Darke Pygmalion by Lynn McCrary takes place circa 1930 in a world of the Cthulhu Mythos as created by H.P. Lovecraft but steeped with Steampunk technology. The protagonist is Ed, a senior at Miskatonic University. His father owns an airship manufacturing company and expects Ed to follow him into the family business. However, Ed has dreams of building human-like automata. He raises money to live off campus by working in the local morgue where he often hangs ...

The Night Whispers

My mom was a soap opera fan. When I would come home from school, I’d usually find her parked in front of the television to watch her “stories.” I would occasionally watch with her for a time while waiting to claim the TV from her so I could watch afternoon cartoons on a local independent station before starting any homework I might have. While romance is a natural part of life and it’s likely to find its way into many stories regardless of genre, I suspect her love of soap operas and being expos...

Escaping the Dashia

I edited the magazine Hadrosaur Tales from 1995 to 2005. One of the things I enjoyed about editing a small magazine is that I had the chance to interact with some very talented authors, some of whom were just embarking on their writing careers. One of those authors was Rebecca Inch-Partridge who had stories in issues 9, 10, and 18. I was excited to learn that Rebecca’s debut novel is about to be released and it’s set in the same world as her stories from Hadrosaur Tales.

Rebecca’s novel is...

Interview with the Vampire on TV

When my wife and I made our foray to Tombstone, Arizona back in October, something unusual happened. We actually caught the debut of a new TV series. In this case, it was AMC’s adaptation of Anne Rice’s novel, Interview with the Vampire. Overall, we were both captivated by the acting and storytelling in this new adaptation. Admittedly it’s been over thirty years since I’ve read the novel, but I clearly recognized the differences, the most apparent being the change in time period. The novel’s ear...

UFO: Destruct Positive!

I remember when I was quite young, possibly in the first or second grade, I went to say “good night” to my brother while he was watching TV. I remember space ships with large missiles on the front launching from a base on the moon. It looked very cool and my brother told me the show was called UFO. He let me watch for a while. I was captivated by the space ships and the moonbase action, but didn’t understand much of the actual plot. A few days later, I was in the toy department of a local store ...