Horror fiction news: 4/19/08

Horrorworld April updates:
This month we have a story by Ronald Kelly who's new collection FLESH WELDER is up for pre-order at CROATOAN PUBLISHING - you can read more about it on the CROATOAN PUBLISHING message board. Ronald's story is called MISTER MACK AND THE MONSTER MOBILE - as creepy a story as I've read in a long time!

This month also marks the debut of our newest columnist, M. Stephen Lukac, author of OOGIE BOOGIE CENTRAL and OOGIE BOOGIE BOUNCE. Stephen talks about Finding Your Voice.

On the hotseat this month we have the talented Rain Graves, author and hostess of the WHC Gross Out Contest. There are two (yes two!) terrific contests this month.

Our Leisure contest is for Bryan Smith's QUEEN OF BLOOD and, courtesy of Biting Dog Press, one lucky winner will get a signed/limited copy of DISPOSAL by Jeff Strand, MIDLISTERS by Kealan Patrick Burke, and Monkey Love by John Paul Allen.

Don't forget to take a look at all the great new Reviews we have this month. We're still offering free shipping on the Stoker Award Winning FIVE STROKES TO MIDNIGHT edited by Gary Bruanbeck and Hank Schwaeble. There's a whole bunch of new activity on the Message Boards this month. We have a ton of new members and the discussions are lively. Stop by and say hello. Brought to you by HORROR WORLD!

Other items:

HIDDEN CITIES Website & Contest - Golden & Lebbon
The wonderful Deena Warner has just made live our spiffing new website for the Hidden Cities books we're writing for Bantam .. .MIND THE GAP is out soon!
Click on 'Submit Your Story' to send us some of your spooky experiences from around the world ... and enter a contest to win a Limited Edition Hardback of the book from Cemetery Dance!

Virgin Books has started a horror line
The start of publication for this line of fiction is Spring 2008, and aim to publish six titles in the first year and more there after.
The titles are:
Our first five titles are -
The Grin of the Dark (May 08)
The Unblemished (June08)
Banquet for the Damned (Aug 08)
Teatro Grottesco (Sep 08)
The Perils and Dangers of this Night (Oct08)

Permuted Press news: Bestial

Bestial: Werewolf Apocalypse by William D. Carl
Pre-order Now With Free Shipping!
Beneath the dim light of a full moon, the population of Cincinnati mutates into huge, snarling monsters that devour everyone they see, acting upon their most base and bestial desires. Planes fall from the sky. Highways are clogged with abandoned cars, and buildings explode and topple. The city burns.Only four people are immune to the metamorphosis--a smooth-talking thief who maintains the code of the Old West, an African-American bank teller who has struggled her entire life to emerge unscathed from the ghetto, a wealthy middle-aged housewife who finds everything she once believed to be a lie, and a teen-aged runaway turning tricks for food.Somehow, these survivors must discover what caused this apocalypse and stop it from spreading. In their way is not only a city of beasts at night, but, in the daylight hours, the same monsters returned to human form, many driven insane by atrocities committed against friends and families during the night.But another night is fast approaching. And once again the moon will be full.
Pre-order now at just $14.95 and get free shipping!

4/10/08 Permuted Press News

From Permuted Press:

Permuted Press is working on a new imprint called Swarm Press. Permuted will remain focused on apocalyptic/zombie works while Swarm will cover a wider array of genres: speculative fiction, sci-fi, fantasy, general horror, etc. The site is bare bones at the moment, but you can check out our logo and sign up for the mailing list: http://www.swarmpress.com

and

David Dunwoody--author of Permuted Press's Empire--now has his own official home on the web:
http://www.daviddunwoody.com
This will act as a hub to all of the places on the Web where you can read, interact, and purchase works by David--including the free online version of Empire and his upcoming serial novel The Harvest Cycle.

4/4/08 McFarland and Medallion To Publish Lamberson Books

Over the next seven months, Buffalo based author and filmmaker Gregory Lamberson (Slime City) will see two books released by different publishers. First up is Cheap Scares! Low Budget Horror Filmmakers Share Their Secrets, which McFarland & Company will publish in hardcover on June 29th. Then Medallion Press will publish Johnny Gruesome, his zombie novel, as a mass market trade paperback in the fall.

Cheap Scares! is a comprehensive look at low budget horror filmmaking and features in- depth interviews with filmmakers J.R. Bookwalter (The Dead Next Door), Roy Frumkes (Street Trash), Larry Fessenden (Habit), Brett Piper (Shock-O-Rama!), James Lorinz (Swirlee) and Scooter McCrae (Shatter Dead), as well as up and coming filmmakers Devi Snively (Trippin’), Justin Channell (Die and Let Live), Justin Wingenfeld (Skin Crawl) and screenwriter Robert Craig Sabin (Rex Miller’s Chaingaing).

“Cheap Scares! is a huge book,” says Lamberson. “I wanted it to be genuinely useful and inspiring to low budget filmmakers without misleading them about the reality of the current state of the marketplace for micro-budget films. There’s literally enough information in it for two books.” In addition to insights offered by Lamberson and his filmmaker subjects, the book features guidance by an entertainment attorney (Jerry Gold), a horror DVD distributor (Stephen Biro, president of Unearthed Films), and a marketing executive (Paige Davis from POP Cinema).

Lamberson’s second novel, Johnny Gruesome, about a murdered high school student who becomes a vengeance crazed zombie, is currently available as a Limited Edition hardcover from Bad Moon Books. Medallion Press will publish the novel as an affordable trade paperback which will be available in bookstores nationwide this October, with a new cover by popular tattooist Dan Plumley.

“Medallion is really behind Johnny Gruesome,” Lamberson says. “This is probably the first time that a company with a significant marketing budget has pushed one of my projects. Their art department has gone all out in creating an interior design for this book that will floor horror fans. More important, for the first time readers will be able to walk into almost any bookstore and buy one of my novels.”

Medallion will debut Johnny Gruesome at BookExpo America, held at the Los Angeles Convention Center May 29th – June 1st, and Lamberson will appear as one of the publisher’s featured authors. Medallion will also publish Lamberson’s first novel, Personal Demons, as a mass market paperback in October, 2009

4/01/08 Graphic Classics News

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 28, 2008
WIZARDRY, DREAMWORLDS AND… FRANKENSTEIN!
Eureka Productions is pleased to announce the publication of FANTASY CLASSICS, the fifteenth volume in the GRAPHIC CLASSICS® series of comics adaptations of great literature. FANTASY CLASSICS is a multi-author anthology, featuring Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein," adapted by Rod Lott and Skot Olsen, with a prologue illustrated by Mark A. Nelson. Also featured is H.P. Lovecraft's epic fantasy "The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath," by Ben Avery and Leong Wan Kok, and "Oz" author L. Frank Baum's "The Glass Dog," by Antonella Caputo and Brad Teare. Plus Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Rappaccini's Daughter," adapted by Lance Tooks, and poems by Fantasy Masters Clark Ashton Smith and Lord Dunsany, illustrated by Evert Geradts and Rachel Masilamani. With a dramatic cover painting by Skot Olsen.FANTASY CLASSICS is available in bookstores, comics shops, or direct from the publisher at http://www.graphicclassics.com.______________________
FANTASY CLASSICS: Graphic Classics Volume Fifteen
Edited by Tom Pomplun
Published March 2008, Eureka Productions
Distributed by Diamond Book Distributors(ISBN 978-0-9787919-3-3)
144 pgs, 7 x 10", paperback, b&w, 4c cover, $11.95

4/1/08 Permuted Press news

From Permuted Press:
The Morningstar Saga continues in Thunder and Ashes...Pre-order Now With Free Shipping!A lot can change in three months: wars can be decided, nations can be forged... or entire species can be brought to the brink of annihilation. The Morningstar Virus, an incredibly virulent disease, has swept the face of the planet, infecting billions. Its hosts rampage, attacking anything that remains uninfected. Even death can't stop the virus, which reanimates its victims as cannibalistic shamblers.Scattered across the world, embattled groups have persevered. For some, surviving is the pinnacle of achievement. Others hoard goods and weapons. And still others leverage power over the remnants of humanity in the form of a mysterious cure for Morningstar. Francis Sherman and Anna Demilio want only a vaccine, but to find it, they must cross a countryside in ruins, dodging not only the infected, but also the lawless living.The bulk of the storm has passed over the world, leaving echoing thunder and softly drifting ashes. But for the survivors, the peril remains, and the search for a cure is just beginning...
Pre-order now at just $14.95 and get free shipping!

Available Late May, 2008

"Shamblers, sprinters, and a generous helping of guts, brains, and heart--for those who believe sequels never outshine the original, Thunder and Ashes is just the cure."--D.L. Snell, author of Roses of Blood on Barbwire Vines

4/1/08 Horror Author Harry Shannon News

Indie horror pic "Dead and Gone" has been scheduled for a July 2008 DVD release via Lionsgate. The low budget black comedy, directed by Yossi Sasson from a screenplay by novelist Harry Shannon, features Kyle Gass of Tenacious D, Chris Bruno of TV's Dead Zone, Quentin Jones, rocker Ben Moody (co-founder of Evanescence), scream queen Felissa Rose, Kathryn Bates and Gillian Shure. Delirium Books will release Shannon's novel version in August.
More info plus photo gallery at www.deadandgonethemovie.com or www.myspace.com/deadandgonethemovie

Early FANGORIA coverage here http://www.fangoria.com/news_article.php?id=3744


DAEMON BOOK TRAILER on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSPS05VCIZYDirector Yossi Sasson and Delirium Books have uploaded a terrific book trailer for Harry Shannon's horror novel DAEMON, which can be found inside. In the novel, which hits retailers March 25, Black Ops specialist Jeff Lehane burned out fast and retired young. He still has nightmares about a bloody mission into Iraq, right on the eve of the war. Lehane reluctantly agrees to assist his ex-wife, who is guarding a Latino rap star. She is killed during the concert, and Jeff soon discovers that someone—or something—has broken into the morgue to eat from her corpse. Outraged, Lehane assembles his former team and they begin to hunt down the ghoul that is stalking Las Vegas.Check out the book trailer RE-POST and pass it on to anyone who loves horror novels and/or movies.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSPS05VCIZY"DAEMON"Delirium Books, March '08

4/1/08 News : New horror releases from Virgin Books

Our first press release is from Virgin Books:

The Unblemished
Conrad Williams
Published 10th April 2008, £7.99 paperback original, 978 0753513 514
An epic drama of flesh-eating monsters and hunted survivors that rivals 28 Days Later

‘This is horror literature unabashed and entire, at full imaginative stretch, beautiful and blazing’ Peter Straub

Artfully interweaving the stories of a mother determined to protect her only daughter, and a serial killer who believes he is the rightful heir to an ancient dynasty of flesh eating monsters. The fate of each of them and the survival of the whole human race depends on one man, Bo Mulvey, who possesses the ancient wisdom the monsters need to achieve their full and horrifying potential.

The author
Conrad Williams is the author of over 80 short stories, two novels and several novellas. His work has been short listed for awards by the British Fantasy Society and the International Horror Guild. The Unblemished beat a strong shortlist, which included Stephen King, to Best Novel at the International Horror Guild Awards.

The Grin of the Dark
Ramsey Campbell
Published 8th May 2008, £7.99 paperback original, 978 0753513 811
This masterpiece of sustained paranoia and entrapment is like a scream that never ends

Tubby Thackeray’s stage routines were so deranged that members of his audience were said to have died or lost their minds. When Simon Lester is commissioned to write a book about the forgotten music hall clown and his riotous silent comedies, his research plunges him into a nightmarish realm where genius, buffoonery and madness converge. In a search that leads him to a twilight circus in a London park, a derelict church in northern England and even a hardcore movie studio in Los Angeles, Simon Lester uncovers a terrifying secret about Tubby Thackeray and must finally confront the unspeakable thing he represents . . .

The author
The Oxford Companion to English Literature describes Ramsey Campbell as ‘Britain’s most respected living horror writer’. He has been given more awards than any other in the field, including the Grand Master Award of the World Horror Convention. He is the president of the British Fantasy Society.