friday february 01
My grandmother's house was big, old, and beautiful, with enormous trees and a cool-in-the-summertime basement. It sat high on a hill with an impossible set of steps leading up to it from the road.
In The Good House (2003) by Tananarive Due, the grandmother's house is a lot like that, including the steps, except it is located in a place that is alternately blessed and evil. The characters in the book, led by strong-willed and sensible Angela, are gradually and helplessly drawn down into the whirlpool of evil that was mistakenly set loose through vodou by her grandmother Marie.
There is a bit of the classic Haunted House tale in the book, but the story is more creepily centered in the woods where there is magic and magic gone wrong. Due has a gift for plot twists and turns. The characters ring true, and the underlying sense of place sets the tone for a very creepy story.
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wednesday january 02
Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson, aka the Ghost Hunters from SciFi channel, have written a book about investigating the paranormal. Ghost Hunting: True Stories of Unexplained Phenomena from The Atlantic Paranormal Society (2007) covers many of the series' investigations, but they are fleshed out with photos, more action, and fascinating behind the scenes information.
Another terrific book of true hauntings is David Domine's Phantoms of Old Louisville: Ghostly Tales from America's Most Haunted Neighborhood (2006). I have met and talked with people whose stories are in the book, and these intelligent down-to-earth people are absolutely convinced of their hauntings. I have no reason to doubt them, and every reason to believe them. David's tireless research and endless patience have resulted in a wonderful collection of stories exemplifying the beautiful old neighborhood.
I would love to see the Ghost Hunters go to Old Louisville, the nation's largest preserved Victorian neighborhood, with 50 square blocks of original restored Victorian houses. It is also reputedly the most haunted neighborhood in the country. Well, no wonder. It's so gorgeous, who wouldn't want to hang around?
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friday october 12
Just in time for Halloween--a scintillating, sizzling, sexy array of paranormal chick lit. Whether vampires are your thing, or demons turn you on, you're guaranteed to find something to read here:
wednesday june 06
Hurray! TAPS (The Atlantic Paranormal Society), my favorite crew of ghost-hunting plumbers, is back on the air, and starting June 6 there will be new episodes of Ghost Hunters on SciFi with new investigations! These Ghost Hunters take their investigations very seriously, coming at it from the point of view of disproving it. Sometimes they can't...
Along those lines, I have a little stack of books on my desk about proving and debunking paranormal events.
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friday march 16
I'm a huge Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel: The Series fan. Those two series are really what sparked my interest in vampire fiction. Some of the best books in vampire fiction is Tanya Huff's Toronto-based "Blood Books" series featuring PI Vicky Nelson and her friend/lover Henry Fitzroy (who just happens to be the 450 year old son of Henry the VIII). Vicky also gets the assist from her ex-boyfriend Mike Celluci in her chasing down cases. She's a fabulously flawed heroine who really deserves your time!
The "Blood Books" were originally published in the early '90s as single titles, but have recently been reissued in three omibus editions. Each edition contains two of the stories.
monday march 05
Anne Rivers Siddons, noted author of contemporary North Carolina "low country" fiction, produced one and only one horror novel, The House Next Door. I wish she would write more!
The seeping darkness of a gorgeous modern marvel of a house stands out like a stain in the well-to-do, long established neighborhood where it is built and takes on a life of its own. It also takes over the lives of its owners. It's an interesting twist on the haunted house story, based on a sleek brand new contemporary house rather than a decrepit mansion.
The stunning beauty of the house hides the misery and terror that it seemingly causes, making rational people do wildly irrational things and turning spotless lives into great big messes.
The book was written in 1978, and the lack of "modern" technology shows but doesn't detract from the suspense.
Siddons has a crafty way of describing things in terms of everyday life, which makes the horrifying events even scarier, placing them just outside the kitchen door.
Be careful, and wish your neighbors well...
friday february 23
The Horror Writers Association has announced that Thomas Harris will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Bram Stoker Awards Banquet at the end of March during the annual HWA Conference that will be held in conjunction with the 2007 World Horror Convention in Toronto.
Harris hasn't written a lot of books, but his fiction is very finely crafted and creepy. He is, of course, recognized for his perfectly written saga of Hannibal Lecter, the compelling psychopath from Red Dragon, Silence of the Lambs, and Hannibal.
The latest and final installment, Hannibal Rising, is actually the first installment, starting with Hannibal as a young boy in Eastern Europe during World War II. It offers the reasons for Hannibal becoming the way he is.
Harris wrote the screenplay for the movie at the same time as the novel. Hannibal Rising is available in audio as well as print, and as a digital audio book for download from the Ohio eBook Project.
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saturday january 27
Selling junk from around the house on eBay is fun, but driving to the post office is kind of a drag. When I saw Julian Dibbell's Play Money: Or, How I Quit My Day Job and Made Millions Trading Virtual Loot, I thought I might be onto something I'd enjoy. For one thing, when my daughter got sick of Neopets, I took over her account, and I'm glad to report that our oldest pet, Jenifrlopez, is now 1,298 days old. (My daughter's gotten into Runescape: she's the girl with a chef's cap who goes around butchering virtual zoo animals.) Right now on eBay, someone is trying to sell a Runescape virtual Santa Hat for $100. Some virtual items have sold for hundreds of real dollars, presumably to game players who don't want to spend the hours it can take to earn rare items.
There is no market for virtual Neopets stuff on eBay, and my daughter refuses to sell her Runescape items. Neopets is not exactly a MMORPG ("massively multiplayer online role-playing game), and Runescape is not one of the more popular ones. Check the MMORPG Web site or similar ones for an update.
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wednesday december 27
Ghosts and spooky happenings have always been interesting topics for books and stories.
Edgar Award winner Phillip DePoy has created a well-written fiction series about a folklorist named Fever Devlin who returns to his Appalachian roots and whose investigations delve in just short of the paranormal: The Devil's Hearth (2003), The Witch's Grave (2004), and the recent well-received A Minister's Ghost (2006).
Cree Black, Daniel Hecht's fictional paranormal investigator, explores haunted houses and weird happenings in City of Masks (2003), also available as a digital audio book; the series continues with Land of Echoes(2004) and Bones of the Barbary Coast (2006).
Another good ghost story is Jodi Picoult's Second Glance; it is one of those stories with characters and time playing tricks on the reader.
Some other books with a paranormal story line are the International Horror Guild's award winning Fogheart by Thomas Tessier, John Passarella's Kindred Spirit, and Charlie Price's Dead Connection.
tuesday december 26
Need a reading suggestion for that special oddball in your life? I may have a perfectly esoteric recommendation. If the person has an interest in the 1960's, the occult, eccentric people, and strange tales, Gary Lachman's intriguing Turn Off Your Mind: The Mystic Sixties and the Dark Side of the Age of Aquarius might be just the ticket (to ride). This fast-paced and highly entertaining reader of otherworldly and sometimes sordid activities alleges connections between many colorful figures such as: L. Ron Hubbard and Aleister Crowley, Charles Manson and the Beach Boys, Jayne Mansfield and Anton LaVey (founder of The Church of Satan), and other strange bedfellows too numerous to mention here.
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monday december 04
When did Jack the Ripper commit his crimes? 1608? 1749? 1888? 1922? Why do we all sort of know who he was? Until I started looking him (or them) up, I hadn't a clue. In fact, the killer (or killers) commited the crimes in 1888-1981, almost sort of within living memory of those people in the 118-year-old age range who remember their babyhoods well.
After reading Patricia Cornwell's Case Closed, I had no doubt in my mind that artist Walter Sickert was the guilty one. And then I read that Sickert is not in fact even one of the more seriously considered suspects by Ripperites. Wikipedia says Sickert was in France during the time of a lot of the murders.
A Wikipedia writer ominously comments that it is actually hard to tell which murder victims are Jack the Ripper's work, since there were many brutal and horrific murders of women during this period of time.
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tuesday october 31
We tend to think of scary books at Halloween, and I'll take this chance to promote some of my favorite creepy audio books and reading for any dark night.
The Edgar Allan Poe Audio Collection is read by Vincent Price and Basil Rathbone. Poe's work distills all that is eerie, and these two masters of voice bring the recordings to chilling life.
The Shining by Stephen King is a perennial favorite, good at the movies but terrific as the original book.
Peter Straub's Lost Boy Lost Girl is as creepy as it gets, an excellent read along with its sequel In The Night Room.
And don't forget the Classics: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley; Dracula by Bram Stoker and the wonderful silent film Nosferatu; and even War of the Worlds by HG Wells, which was a written work long before it was performed as a radio play or movie.
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sunday october 29
It’s the perfect time of year to read Roger Zelazny’s delightfully clever spoof of supernatural fantasy, A Night in the Lonesome October.
A group of animal “familiars” led by our narrator, Snuff the Watchdog, are helping their masters (including a knife-wielding Jack, a Count, and the Good Doctor and his Experimental Man) prepare for a rare Victorian-era conjunction of Halloween and the full moon.
It seems that such conjunctions are the only times when a Gate can be opened for the return of the old gods, and magical combatants must gather to prevent its opening.
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friday october 27
If you haven't yet read Elizabeth Kostova's blockbuster debut The Historian, you might want to pick up a copy. Kostova, who graduated from Yale, took 10 years to research and write her vampire tale. Apparently her persistence paid off--Little, Brown and Co. purchased the book for $2 million, and Sony shelled out another $1.5 million for the movie rights. It also won the 2006 Book Sense Book of the Year Award and the 2005 Quill Award for Debut Author of the Year. It has been published in 37 different languages, had an initial print run of 300,000, and hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list.
The book opens in 1972 Amsterdam, where a 16-year-old American girl discovers an ancient book in her father's library. The book is blank except for a creepy drawing inscribed with the word "Drakulya", but it is the letters hidden inside it that intrigue her. Letters which begin with the ominous salutation "My dear and unfortunate successor..."
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tuesday october 17
After reading George D. Shuman's 18 Seconds, I was reminded of this famous quote from M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense. 18 Seconds is the story of Sherry Moore, a blind psychic blessed (and cursed) with the ability to see the last 18 seconds of a person's life. When Sherry touches a dead person's body, she relives their last seconds before dying. This makes her an invaluable asset to the detectives of Wildwood, New Jersey, who are hunting a serial killer preying on young women. The killings are eerily similar to a series of unsolved homicides from the 1970's. When the killer learns about Sherry's "unusual ability", a cunning game of cat-and-mouse begins.
Intrigued? Read on for a list of more thrillers featuring people with "unusual abilities."
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friday october 13
Did you know that a study in the British Medical Journal found there was an increased risk of being injured in an accident on Friday the 13th? Were you aware of the superstition that if 13 people sit down to dinner one will die within the year? The full story of the above, and other facts and folklore surrounding the number 13 can be found in Jonathan Cott's Thirteen: A journey into the number.
Thirteen is Cott's 13th book, and the story of its beginning makes an interesting introduction. Spurred to write by his own trepidation about the number (despite labeling himself a generally unsuperstitious person), Cott begins with a meeting of the Philadelphia Friday the 13th club, travels through calendars and horoscopes based on the number 13, and also touches on music, art and poetry inspired by the number.
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wednesday october 04
If ever there's a time to read about zombies, it's now. Max Brooks (son of the brilliant Mel Brooks) became the nation's foremost expert on zombie culture with 2003's The Zombie Survival Guide: complete protection from the living dead. With so many threats to our safety looming, it's reassuring that someone's keeping an eye on the zombie front. As you can imagine, you'll find out more than you'll ever need to know (hopefully) about surviving a zombie attack. And a nice follow-up to the guide is World War Z: an oral history of the Zombie war where Brooks travels the planet gathering the stories of those who have witnessed a zombie attack and lived to tell the tale.
saturday september 16
Now that I've finally cleared enough work from around my computer that I can blog without laying eyes on some urgent task that needs to be done immediately, I thought I could mention that I'm back from my vacation. And what a vacation it was! I started out with the idea of just finishing off a few projects and ended knowing that I was going to have to remove most of the tin ceiling downstairs. In between that, there was the flood...
If you're looking for a book on plumbing, I can heartily recommend Plumbing: basic, intermediate, and advanced projects, with the caveat that, unless you live in a house less than 20 years old, your plumbing will never be as clean, modern, or in as convenient a place as "book plumbing". However, at this point I'm really looking for a distraction from thoughts of plumbing so I thought I'd step sideways, yet continue the general "too much water and associated disasters" theme with a quick look at Brian Keene's The Conqueror Worms.
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tuesday september 12
Shortly before the turn of the 20th century there was a group that formed with the goal of investigating and either proving or not the existence of ghosts. Ghost Hunters: William James and the Scientific Search for Proof of Life After Death (2006) by Deborah Blum recounts the efforts this group put forth to prove the paranormal in a time when science and religion were at odds. It is fascinating.
Interestingly, William James was one of the founders of the American Psychological Association and brother of writer Henry James.
I'm always ready for a good ghost story. Brad Steiger's Real Ghosts, Restless Spirits, and Haunted Places (2004) is a book full of documented cases and oral histories of hauntings and paranormal occurrences. It is refreshingly grounded, offering a bibliography, a list of good ghost movies, and a listing of haunted cities. Cincinnati is there, citing among others a ghost lion at the Zoo.
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wednesday august 02
The Lobotomist, by journalist Jack El-Hai, is a biography of Walter Freeman, the doctor who popularized a treatment that many people find very repellent today. The idea was that severing the nerves between the brain's frontal lobes would decrease anxiety and depression in patients with severe mental illness. Sometimes it worked.
Very often it didn't, of course, especially for patients with schizophrenia. Often, although not always, lobotomy made patients more docile and quiet. These patients were then able, if not always to live productive lives, at least to leave warehouse-like mental institutions and return home. Too many times, though, lobotomies were given to patients simply to make them less troublesome. Fifty-thousand people received lobotomies, mostly, according to an NPR feature, between 1949 and 1952.
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wednesday july 19
A little bit like Elmer Fudd "huntin' wabbits", here we go on the trail of phantom phenomena.
Get the basics on ghost hunting in The Complete Idiot's Guide to Ghosts and Hauntings (2004) by Tom Ogden, a surprisingly entertaining collection of ghost stories, evidence, and instruction on tracking down supernatural phenomena. You can also consult Joshua P. Warren's How To Hunt Ghosts (2003), listing what to look for and the equipment you need to find it and prove it.
Maybe you are having trouble finding a ghost. There are guides to haunts, such as Ghosthunting Ohio (2004) by John B. Kachuba that takes you around the state to visit documented ghostly places. Haunted Hoosier Trails (Wanda Lou Willis, 2002) is a similar guide to Indiana. William Linwood Montell's Haunted Houses and Family Ghosts of Kentucky (2001) is a collection of stories and folk history from our neighboring Commonwealth to the south.
Happy Hunting! ...or should that be "Happy Haunting"??
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wednesday june 21
In Newark, NJ, at their annual conference this past weekend the Horror Writers Association announced the best in Horror Writing for 2005. The members voted on a long ballot of worthy award recipients competing for the Bram Stoker Award in such categories as Novel, Short Story, Anthology, and Poetry. Yes, Horror Poetry.
There was a tie for Best Novel this year. Creepers by David Morrell and Dread in the Beast by Charlee Jacob. Creepers follows a group of urban explorers into a huge abandoned hotel built in 1901 where OF COURSE they find more than old furniture and bats. Creepy.
I am sorely disappointed that I did not get to be there this year to see one of my favorite authors, Peter Straub, receive the Lifetime Achievement Award.
Peter Straub has been writing exceptional horror fiction since 1976's Julia. His latest books, In The Night Room and Lost Boy Lost Girl, are exemplary novels, fascinating in their twisted representation of reality and unbelievable word craftsmanship. You might recognize his name from his partnerships with Steven King (Black House, etc).
Congratulations to all of the award winners!
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monday june 12
How about something cold and shivery on a hot summer day?
One of my favorites is The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (1959). This scary little novel was the inspiration for two movies, 1963's excellent The Haunting, and 1999's slightly cheesy remake, also called The Haunting.
Another classic is A Stir of Echoes (Richard Matheson, 1958), a deliciously creepy ghost story with a psychological angle. It was made into a movie in 1999, but it is more of a "jump" feature and doesn't have that scariness-lurking-beneath-our-normal-lives feeling of the book.
Jodi Picoult's Second Glance (2003) is a wonderful ghost story with a very natural voice that brings the reader right into the incredible experiences of the characters. No movie, which might be all for the better.
Annie Wilder wrote a fascinating memoir of living with ghosts, House of Spirits and Whispers: The True Story of a Haunted House (2005). It's a quick chilly read for a hot summer day -- and you will never look at your cat the same way again...
friday june 02
The Bell Witch: An American Haunting (1997, Brent Monohan) is a retelling of a terrifying ordeal endured by an early 1800's Tennessee family. What makes this story so frightening is the power of the human mind, and what people can do when pushed to the absolute limit of their tolerance.
And by the way...don't bother with the movie version of this book, unless you are looking for a murky, jerky costume picture where you can see 1818 school kids playing soccer and a photo of an 1820 wedding couple. It is an inaccurate sadly skewed misrepresentation of a fascinating story.
Terrific book for fans of The Unexplained. Disappointing movie for fans of the book.
British author Ramsey Campbell has mastered the knack of establishing an unsettling mood that seeps right into everyday life around you. His seemingly normal people and places eventually reveal themselves to be way outside of the ordinary, with tree people peeking over the back fence, ancient evil oozing up out of the stacks in a bookshop, and co-eds' fathers indulging their daughters to death.
Campbell's latest book, The Overnight (2005), centers on a big brand-new chain bookstore in suburban England that is a repository of ancient evil. The story starts out gritty and chilly, and the tone is unrelentingly dark, leading to a satisfyingly inevitable conclusion.
It just might make you think twice about going to the mall at night, alone, in the dark...
