Author Archives: steven

Halloween TV Marathons: Movies! and Get TV

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It’s part 3 of our overview of the kind of scare-related programming you’ll find on television this Halloween. This time we’ll take a look at a couple of cable movie channels in the U.S. that are showing old-timey horror films.

movies-halloweenFor the Movies! TV Network, the day starts off with 1959’s The Tingler at 8:00 a.m. (ET), starring master of the macabre Vincent Price (younger Panatics might recognize him as the creepy voice and sinister laugh at the end of Michael Jackson’s hit single “Thriller”: “The foulest stench is in the air/The funk of 40,000 years…”). The Tingler is a parasite that can only be halted from killing you if you scream at the top of your lungs—a plot device that made a lot of sense when the movie was in wide release, because the sales pitch to audiences was that at some point the Tingler would be loosed in your theater! It involved certain seats being wired with an electrical current that would mildly shock the “victims,” causing them to scream—scream for their lives! (In the late ’80s, I saw The Tingler in a small movie house here in Manhattan—and yep, they wired the seats, just like back in the day. That was the best!)

 

swamp_thing1982Movies! continues its programming with 1967’s Berserk!, starring Joan Crawford; 1965’s Die! Die! My Darling!, with Tallulah Bankhead and Stephanie Powers; 1971’s The Mephisto Waltz, with Alan Alda and Jacqueline Bisset; the 1988 remake of The Blob, with Shawnee Smith and Kevin Dillon; John Carpenter’s 1980 thriller The Fog, with Jamie Lee Curtis (Halloween) and Adrienne Barbeau (Escape From New York); Wes Craven’s 1982 adaptation of DC Comics’ Swamp Thing, starring Louis Jordan, Ray Wise, Adrienne Barbeau, and Dick Durock as the walking, talking swamp critter; and 1975’s Bug—about killer cockroaches—starring Bradford Dillman and Joanna Miles. Wrapping up the marathon with 1967’s The Deadly Bees, with Suzanna Leigh and Frank Finlay.

Not a bad lineup at all. So what’s happening on those higher TV-remote numbers?

get-tv-logoGet TV—a cable channel owned by Sony Pictures that runs TV shows and movies from Sony’s extensive library—hosts a brief Halloween schedule, starting late Sunday night (October 30) at 10:00 p.m. (ET) with the one-hour documentary Vincent Price: The Versatile Villain, an overview of the actor’s life and career. It’s followed by the 1954 Price vehicle The Mad Magician, about a murderous illusionist who terrorizes costars Mary Murphy and Eva Gabor.

return-vampireThen comes 1944’s The Return of the Vampire, starring Dracula himself, Bela Lugosi, as he tries to put the bite on Nina Foch and Frieda Inescourt. After a break for a Western (1954’s Jesse James vs. The Daltons—what the hell?), horror returns for a trilogy of documentaries: Bela Lugosi: Hollywood’s Dark Prince; Boris Karloff: The Gentle Monster; and Peter Lorre: The Master of Menace. Then another break, with episodes of the TV series Nanny and the Professor and Ensign O’Toole, before a final, minor supernatural-themed show: an episode of the ghost-comedy series The Ghost & Mrs. Muir, starring Edward Mulhare and Hope Lange as the eponymous characters.

Hey, Get, if you’re owned by Sony, and you have access to their film library, where are the Sony horror movies for a full-out marathon? What about The Howling for the overnight hours? Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II for prime time? (GB’s producer, Columbia Pictures, is a subsidiary of Sony.) Producer William Castle’s The Old Dark House or Homicidal? Maybe Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre in the 1942 horror comedy The Boogie Man Will Get You?

Let’s…er, get on the ball for next year, okay?

Halloween TV Marathons: AMC, Antenna TV, Showtime Beyond

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Continuing our look at U.S. cable-TV station that will be celebrating Halloween this year, this time we shine the spotlight on a couple of basic-cable channels and a pay-TV one, all with something to offer.

amc_logoAMC—home of The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead—spends All Hallows’ Eve celebrating the monstrous acts of unstoppable serial killer Michael Myers (aka The Shape) with an all-day Halloween marathon. John Carpenter’s chilling 1978 masterpiece Halloween starts the day at 9:00 a.m. (ET), with Jamie Lee Curtis’s Laurie Strode just trying to survive the night and Donald Pleasance trying to put a bullet between the eyes of her silent, murderous escaped patient. Then Curtis and Pleasance return for more Shape-bashing in 1981’s Halloween II (which is set immediately after the original). It’s followed by immediate encores of Halloween I and II.

AMC skips over the sole non-Michael entry in the franchise, 1982’s Halloween III: Season of the Witch, and picks up the narrative with Donald Pleasance back on the case in 1988’s Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, to prevent Michael from killing Laurie’s daughter, Jamie (played by a young Danielle Harris). And in 1989’s Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, Pleasance uses Jamie as bait(!) to trap Michael. (Hey, now who’s the bad guy—huh, Dr, Loomis?) The night ends with a second rerun of Halloween (three showings in one day!).

antenna_tv_logoAntenna TV—home to reruns of genre shows like The Addams Family, I Dream of Jeannie, Bewitched, and Sabrina the Teenage Witch—is running an all-day marathon of Alfred Hitchcock Presents episodes, starting at 3:00 a.m. (ET) and continuing right up to 11:00 p.m. A decade-long (1955–1965) anthology series in the vein of The Twilight Zone, AHP dealt with thriller and mystery stories rather than fantasy and science fiction, and every episode featured Hitchcock as on-screen host in dark-humored introductions (he even directed 18 of them). Probably its most famous episode is “Lamb to the Slaughter,” adapted from a story by Roald Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The BFG), about a housewife who murders her husband with a frozen leg of lamb—but it’s not part of this marathon! What the hell, Antenna? Well, at least they’re running AHP’s adaptation of Ambrose Bierce’s classic short story, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” so that’s something.

showtime-beyondShowtime Beyond—the horror- and fantasy-themed movie channel—kicks off Halloween on Sunday night, with the 11:00 p.m. (ET) showing of 2015’s The Funhouse Massacre, starring horror legend Robert (Freddy Krueger) Englund. It’s followed by 2014’s millennials vs. man-eating bear film Backcountry; 2015’s torture-porn tattoo-artist flick Anarchy Parlor; the 2004 wedding horror Zombie Honeymoon; the urban fantasy Walter; 2013’s Space Warriors, about a group of young space cadets rescuing astronauts; 2006’s magic-man The Illusionist, starring Edward Norton, Jessica Biel, and Paul Giamatti; 2015’s The Wicked Within, with Sienna Guillory (Jill Valentine of the Resident Evil movies) starring in a sort of Satan meets The Usual Suspects mash-up.

The 2014 malevolent-ghost story Jessabelle pops in afterward, followed by Blair Witch Project director Eduardo Sanchez’s 2008’s Chinese-ghost story, Seventh Moon; the 2015 monster-at-the-beach film Blood Sand; and an encore of The Illusionist. The evening’s programming consists of the 2014 hit It Follows; The Hills Have Eyes (either the Wes Craven original from 1977 or the Alexandre Aja 2006 remake—Beyond’s schedule doesn’t say); and the telekinetic-killer thriller Patrick (either the 1973 original or the 2013 remake). The night ends with an encore of The Wicked Within.

An okay lineup for these stations. But if you want to experience real horror, you can take a trip over to the Hallmark Channel—which starts running its Countdown to Christmas 2016 movie marathon tonight.

Fifty-six days of overly schmaltzy Christmas movies—God help us all!

Halloween TV Marathons 2016: Chiller TV and Syfy

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The day of spooks and monsters, tricks and treats, and horror movie marathons on television is almost upon us, so I thought now would be the perfect time to see what some of the cable-TV networks—at least those in the United States—are offering viewers for Halloween. We’ll start with a look at what’s on the schedule for two of the most well-known genre-related stations on October 31st…

chiller-logoChiller TV gets its Halloween programming under way this year on Sunday (October 30), with a 9:00 p.m. (ET) showing of 1986’s Poltergeist II: The Other Side, starring Craig T. Nelson, JoBeth Williams, and Heather O’Rourke. Poltergeist III from 1988 follows, with O’Rourke’s Carol Anne moving the ghostly action to Chicago. Rising from the film crypt after it are 1988’s Pumpkinhead, with genre master Lance Henriksen, and 1993’s Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings, followed by 1990’s Flatliners, starring Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, and Kevin Bacon (and which is getting a 2017 sequel with Sutherland, Ellen Page, and Nina Dobrev of The Vampire Diaries). Bacon returns in 1999’s Stir of Echoes, with Rob Lowe picking up the spirit-seeing mantle in 2007’s Stir of Echoes 2: The Homecoming.

Then in the afternoon the movies get shifted around for a string of reruns that carry us into the evening: Pumpkinhead, Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings, Poltergeist II: The Other Side, and Poltergeist III. Halloween wraps up with the broadcast of 1999’s “found footage” trendsetter The Blair Witch Project, with Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, and Joshua Leonard; and 2000’s Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, starring Jeffrey Donovan (Burn Notice) and Kim Director (Gotham).

A disappointing lineup, wouldn’t you say? With all the movies at Chiller’s disposal you’d expect them to put together something more exciting for their most important holiday of the year. No Hellraiser or Evil Dead? No Tremors? No Halloween?! Not even an appearance from Chiller’s own productions, Steve Niles’ Remains, The Monkey’s Paw (with Stephen Lang of the recent thriller Don’t Breathe), or Brian Keene’s Ghoul? Definitely a missed opportunity.

syfy-logoOver at Chiller’s sister network, The Syfy Channel—home to such TV series as Channel Zero, Van Helsing, Z Nation, and The Magicians, as well as those goofy Sharknado movies—things are a little more interesting. It, too, has its Halloween programming carry over from Sunday night, with the 11:00 p.m. (ET) showing of the 2011 home-invasion horror You’re Next. It’s followed by 2013’s Grave Halloween, set in Japan’s notorious “suicide forest” (the same setting of the recent film The Forest), and an encore of You’re Next. Then comes a trio of episodes from Rod Serling’s classic Twilight Zone series: “The Man in the Bottle,” “Nervous Man in a $4 Room,” and “A Thing About Machines.” Then it’s encores of—yep, you guessed it—Grave Halloween and You’re Next.

The heart of the marathon starts at 10:30 a.m. (ET), with the 2012 Joss Whedon–produced The Cabin in the Woods, with Chris (Thor) Hemsworth; 2003’s hillbilly-cannibals flick Wrong Turn, with Eliza Dushku and Jeremy Sisto; 2012’s creepy home-movies monster Sinister, with Ethan Hawke; 2003’s Jeepers Creepers 2, starring Ray Wise (and yes, there’s a Jeepers Creepers 3 in development); the other popular home-invasion film, 2008’s The Strangers, with Scott Speedman and Liv Tyler; and 2009’s walking-dead comedy Zombieland, starring Jesse Eisenberg and Woody Harrelson. The night wraps up with a repeat showing of The Cabin in the Woods.

Set your DVRs now!

Happy Teen Read Week 2016!

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teen-read-weekTeen Read Week 2016 is happening right now, October 9–15. What is it? Well, to quote the event’s website:

Teen Read Week is a national adolescent literacy initiative of the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA). Its purpose is to encourage teens to be regular readers and library users.

Teen Read Week’s 2016 theme is “Read for the Fun of It,” in which “library staff and educators are encouraged to leverage this theme to highlight all of the resources and services available to the 22% of the nation’s youth who speak a language other than English at home.”

For more information on this annual event, visit the Teen Read Week site.

blood_feudAnd speaking of books for teens that can be fun to read, are you familiar with my young adult, dark-urban-fantasy series The Saga of Pandora Zwieback? Pan is a 16-year-old Goth girl who’s spent the last decade being treated for mental health problems because she can see monsters. It’s only after she meets an immortal shape-shifter named Annie that Pan discovers she’s never been ill—her so-called “monstervision” is actually a supernatural gift that allows her to see into Gothopolis, the not-so-mythical shadow world that exists right alongside the human world. You’ll find Pan in the following titles:

The Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0: A free, downloadable comic that serves as an introduction to Pan and Annie—with an 8-page story written by me and illustrated by Eliseu Gouveia—as well as Pan’s first novel, Blood Feud (via a pair of preview chapters).

Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1: This critically acclaimed novel is the beginning of Pan’s story, explaining how she, her parents and friends, and Annie are drawn into a conflict among warring vampire clans searching for the key to an ultimate weapon (or so the legend goes)—a key that just so happens to have been delivered to the horror-themed museum owned by Pan’s father. It’s a character-driven action-fest that leads immediately into the second novel:

Blood-Reign-FinalCvrBlood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2: Pan and Annie face even greater challenges as the vampire clans draw up plans to go to war with humanity. Leading the charge is a fallen angel named Zaqiel, whose previous attempt at subjugating the world was stopped by Annie—who, back in the day, was Zaqiel’s lover! But Pan isn’t about to let some ancient monster win the day, not when the lives of her parents and friends—along with those of every human on the planet—are at stake, so she leads a charge of her own. But whose side is going to emerge the victor remains to be seen…

Blood Feud and Blood Reign are available in print and digital formats. The Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0 is a digital exclusive. Visit their respective product pages for ordering information, as well as sample pages and chapters.

It’s Banned Books Week 2016!

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bbw-logoGot a favorite book? Well, odds are good there’s someone out there in the United States who’d liked to see it censored. And that’s where Banned Books Week comes in—an annual celebration of literacy in which the spotlight is shone on the problem of censorship in U.S. libraries and bookstores. To quote the Banned Books Week website:

Banned Books Week was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. More than 11,300 books have been challenged since 1982.

This year’s focus is on diversity, and why so many books—like the acclaimed firsthand account of the Holocaust, Anne Frank: The Diary of a Girl (file that ban under: what the hell is wrong with people?), perennial “favorite” Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, and Jessica Herthel and Jaz Jennings’s I Am Jazz—that celebrate it were among the top titles banned in 2015.

Banned Books Week 2016 is happening right now, September 25 to October 1, so visit the BBW website for more information, including a list of the books they’re celebrating this year.

You Want to Talk Vampire Hunters?

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Pandora0_CoverTonight is the broadcast premiere of Van Helsing, the SyFy Channel’s latest entry in their ever-growing scripted-series schedule, and one that has no connection to that terrible Hugh Jackman and Kate Beckinsale movie from 2004. To quote the press release:

“The 13-episode series, from acclaimed filmmaker Neil LaBute, will focus on Vanessa Helsing (True Blood’s Kelly Overton), the latest in a long line of famed monster hunters. The series will feature an intriguing twist on the Dracula story, with Vanessa being resurrected in a future in which vampires rule the world. Discovering that she holds a mysterious power over them (the bloodsuckers, that is), Vanessa must lead what’s left of humanity against the vamps in a post-Rising world.”

Well, if vampires and the hunters who fight them are your thing, are you familiar with my young adult novel series The Saga of Pandora Zwieback? Pan is a 16-year-old Goth girl who’s spent the last decade being treated for mental health problems because she can see monsters. It’s only after she meets Annie that Pan discovers she’s never been ill—her so-called “monstervision” is actually a supernatural gift that allows her to see into Gothopolis, the not-so-mythical shadow world that exists right alongside the human world. You’ll find Pan and Annie battling evil in the following titles:

The Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0: A free, downloadable comic that serves as an introduction to Pan and Annie—with an 8-page story written by me and illustrated by Eliseu Gouveia—as well as Pan’s first novel, Blood Feud (via a pair of preview chapters).

blood_feud_lg_cover_2013Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1: This critically acclaimed novel is the beginning of Pan’s story, explaining how she, her parents and friends, and Annie are drawn into a conflict among warring vampire clans searching for the key to an ultimate weapon (or so the legend goes)—a key that just so happens to have been delivered to the horror-themed museum owned by Pan’s father. It’s a character-driven action-fest featuring the kind of gun-toting vampires that Selene would feel right at home among, and it leads immediately into the second novel:

Blood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2: Pan and Annie face even greater challenges as the vampire clans draw up plans to go to war with humanity. Leading the charge is a fallen angel named Zaqiel, whose previous attempt at subjugating the world was stopped by Annie—who, back in the day, was Zaqiel’s lover! But Pan isn’t about to let some ancient monster win the day, not when the lives of her parents and friends—along with those of every human on the planet—are at stake, so she leads a charge of her own. Yes, there’s more vampire gunplay involved—the undead sure do like their firearms—but that’s only part of the dangers Pan has to contend with, as her adventures take her to a mysterious South Pacific island where monsters dwell.

pan_annual_coverThe Saga of Pandora Zwieback Annual #1: A spinoff from the novel series, this 56-page, full-color comic special finds the teenaged Goth adventuress battling Gothic Lolita vampires and a jealous, man-stealing siren. It features stories by me and Sholly Fisch (Scooby-Doo Team-Up), art by Eliseu Gouveia (The Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0), comic-art legend Ernie Colon (Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld), and Elizabeth Watasin (Charm School), and cover art by award-winning artist Henar Torinos (Mala Estrella).

Blood Feud, Blood Reign, and the Pan Annual are available in print and digital formats. Pandora Zwieback #0 is a digital exclusive. Visit their respective product pages for ordering information, as well as sample pages and chapters.

It’s National Read a Book Day 2016!

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blood_feudToday is National Read a Book Day, which is celebrated in the United States every September 6th since…well, nobody seems to know precisely when this “holiday” began, or who started it, but it’s a celebration of reading, so it’s all good, right? And if you’re looking for the right book on this special day, here are a few StarWarp Concepts titles you might want to consider:

Dark Urban Fantasy
Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1 is my young adult novel that’s perfect for lovers of dark urban fantasy. It introduces readers to Pandora Zwieback, a 16-year-old Goth girl who’s spent the last decade being treated for mental health problems because she can see monsters. It’s only after she meets professional monster hunter Sebastienne “Annie” Mazarin that Pan discovers she’s never been ill—her so-called “monstervision” is actually a supernatural gift that allows her to see into Gothopolis, the not-so-mythical shadow world that exists right alongside the human world. In Blood Feud, Pan, her parents and friends, and Annie are drawn into a conflict among warring vampire clans searching for the key to an ultimate weapon (or so the legend goes)—a key that just so happens to have been delivered to the horror-themed museum owned by Pan’s father.

Blood-Reign-FinalCvrIn Blood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2, Pan and Annie face even greater challenges as the vampire clans draw up plans to go to war with humanity. Leading the charge is a fallen angel named Zaqiel, whose previous attempt at subjugating the world was stopped by Annie—who, back in the day, was Zaqiel’s lover! But Pan isn’t about to let some ancient monster win the day, not when the lives of her parents and friends—along with those of every human on the planet—are at stake, so she leads a charge of her own. But whose side is going to emerge the victor remains to be seen…

Illustrated Classics
Princess_Of_MarsA Princess of Mars: Originally published in 1912, this is the first in author Edgar Rice Burroughs’s “John Carter of Mars” ten-novel series about a post–Civil War era American who suddenly finds himself on the Red Planet, battling to stay alive against all sorts of alien threats while falling in love with a beautiful Martian princess. It served as the basis for Disney’s 2012 film adaptation, John Carter, and inspired a century’s worth of SF works, including Flash Gordon, Star Wars, and James Cameron’s Avatar. The special StarWarp Concepts edition—available in both print and digital formats—features six incredible illustrations by SWC artist supreme Eliseu Gouveia (Carmilla, The Saga of Pandora Zwieback Annual #1, Lorelei: Sects and the City), and a special introduction by Mars-fiction expert John Gosling, author of Waging the War of the Worlds.

Carmilla_CoverCarmilla is J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s 19th-century classic vampiric tale of love gone wrong. Laura is so desperate for a friend that when a young woman named Carmilla practically turns up on the doorstep of the castle owned by Laura’s father, she thinks her prayers for companionship have been answered. But as she comes to realize, Carmilla isn’t as interested in making friends as she is in spilling blood. Regarded as the one of the earliest female vampire tales—if not the first—Carmilla was an influence on author Bram Stoker in the creation of the vampire brides in his seminal novel, Dracula, and remains a popular character in fiction to this day. Just like with A Princess of Mars, our edition contains six original illustrations done especially for StarWarp Concepts by the super-talented Eliseu Gouveia.

Writers’ Reference
terraTerra Incognito: A Guide to Building the Worlds of Your Imagination is StarWarp Concepts’ popular how-to book for writers and gamers in which bestselling fantasy author Richard C. White (Gauntlet: Dark Legacy: Paths of Evil, The Chronicles of the Sea Dragon Special, Troubleshooters, Incorporated: Night Stalkings) takes you through the step-by-step process of constructing a world for your characters, from societies and governments to currency and religion. Included is an interview with New York Times bestselling author Tracy Hickman (Dragonlance) that discusses his methods of world building, as well as his creative experiences during his time as a designer for gaming company TSR, the original home of Dungeons & Dragons.

All titles are available in print and digital formats, so visit their respective product pages for ordering information. Happy reading!

Happy Book Lovers Day!

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Hey, fans of reading! Today is Book Lovers Day, a worldwide event celebrated every August 9th, and if you’re looking for the right book on this special day, here are a few StarWarp Concepts titles you might want to consider:

Dark Urban Fantasy
blood_feud_lg_cover_2013Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1 is my young adult novel that’s perfect for lovers of dark urban fantasy. It introduces readers to Pandora Zwieback, a 16-year-old Goth girl who’s spent the last decade being treated for mental health problems because she can see monsters. It’s only after she meets professional monster hunter Sebastienne “Annie” Mazarin that Pan discovers she’s never been ill—her so-called “monstervision” is actually a supernatural gift that allows her to see into Gothopolis, the not-so-mythical shadow world that exists right alongside the human world. In Blood Feud, Pan, her parents and friends, and Annie are drawn into a conflict among warring vampire clans searching for the key to an ultimate weapon (or so the legend goes)—a key that just so happens to have been delivered to the horror-themed museum owned by Pan’s father.

Blood-Reign-FinalCvrIn Blood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2, Pan and Annie face even greater challenges as the vampire clans draw up plans to go to war with humanity. Leading the charge is a fallen angel named Zaqiel, whose previous attempt at subjugating the world was stopped by Annie—who, back in the day, was Zaqiel’s lover! But Pan isn’t about to let some ancient monster win the day, not when the lives of her parents and friends—along with those of every human on the planet—are at stake, so she leads a charge of her own. But whose side is going to emerge the victor remains to be seen…

Illustrated Classics
Princess_Of_MarsA Princess of Mars: Originally published in 1912, this is the first in author Edgar Rice Burroughs’s “John Carter of Mars” ten-novel series about a post–Civil War era American who suddenly finds himself on the Red Planet, battling to stay alive against all sorts of alien threats while falling in love with a beautiful Martian princess. It served as the basis for Disney’s 2012 film adaptation, John Carter, and inspired a century’s worth of SF works, including Flash Gordon, Star Wars, and James Cameron’s Avatar. The special StarWarp Concepts edition—available in both print and digital formats—features six incredible illustrations by SWC artist supreme Eliseu Gouveia (Carmilla, The Saga of Pandora Zwieback Annual #1), and a special introduction by Mars-fiction expert John Gosling, author of Waging the War of the Worlds.

Carmilla_CoverCarmilla is J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s 19th-century classic vampiric tale of love gone wrong. Laura is so desperate for a friend that when a young woman named Carmilla practically turns up on the doorstep of the castle owned by Laura’s father, she thinks her prayers for companionship have been answered. But as she comes to realize, Carmilla isn’t as interested in making friends as she is in spilling blood. Regarded as the one of the earliest female vampire tales—if not the first—Carmilla was an influence on author Bram Stoker in the creation of the vampire brides in his seminal novel, Dracula, and remains a popular character in fiction to this day. Just like with A Princess of Mars, our edition contains six original illustrations done especially for StarWarp Concepts by the super-talented Eliseu Gouveia.

Writers’ Reference
terraTerra Incognito: A Guide to Building the Worlds of Your Imagination is our popular how-to book for writers and gamers in which bestselling fantasy author Richard C. White (Gauntlet: Dark Legacy: Paths of Evil, The Chronicles of the Sea Dragon Special, Troubleshooters, Incorporated: Night Stalkings) takes you through the step-by-step process of constructing a world for your characters, from societies and governments to currency and religion. Included is an interview with New York Times bestselling author Tracy Hickman (Dragonlance) that discusses his methods of world building, as well as his creative experiences during his time as a designer for gaming company TSR, the original home of Dungeons & Dragons.

All titles are available in print and digital formats, so visit their respective product pages for ordering information. Happy reading!

Art Fans Show Love for Painting Legend Bob Larkin

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blood_feudIf you’re a fan of comic books, or movies, or pulp fiction heroes, Bob Larkin is a painter whose work you recognize immediately; in addition to the covers he’s provided for my Saga of Pandora Zwieback novels Blood Feud and Blood Reign, he built a career on painting covers and movie posters for just about every publishing house and film studio for more than four decades. And some of that work has recently been promoted online by longtime fans of his incredible output.

First off, the horror site Camera Viscera shined the spotlight on Bob’s movie-poster work, in their latest installment of “Artists Behind the Image.” From Roger Corman (New Concorde Studios) to Lloyd Kaufman (Troma Studios), from low-budget horror to Jackie Chan kung-fu classics, Bob painted an amazing number of pieces—like those for Piranha, Piranha 2, Night of the Creeps, and Humanoids From the Deep (aka Monster)—that helped to get cinephiles into theaters. You can check out those and more at Camera Viscera.

Meanwhile, over at YouTube, a German fan going by the name “Jmedia” assembled “Bob Larkin: The Gallery”: a video montage of Bob’s covers and posters—and even wrote the score for it! Bob was overjoyed to see it (although he did point out to me that one of the pieces shown isn’t by him). Go give it a look!

SWC_Larkin_SketchbookBut it’s not just his painting skills that are impressive—Bob’s also one hell of a pencil artist, as you’ll see if you order a copy of SWC’s The Bob Larkin Sketchbook. It’s a collection of some of Bob’s incredible pencil drawings, and what you’ll discover when you see them is how wide-ranging his subjects are. Sci-fi, horror, Westerns, pulp adventure, crime fiction, movie merchandise, even wrestling stars—as we say on the book’s back cover, there really is little that he hasn’t painted. And the sketchbook features three pieces created especially for it: the Pandora Zwieback cover art; a portrait of Patricia Savage, the fightin’ cousin of pulp fiction’s top-tier adventurer, Doc Savage, the Man of Bronze; and a two-page spread in which Doc faces off against another Golden Age crimefighter—The Shadow!

The Bob Larkin Sketchbook is available in print and digital formats. Visit its product page for ordering information, as well as sample pages.

And to see more of Bob’s stunning work, pay a visit to his art blog, Bob Larkin: The Illustrated Man.

You’re Gonna Need a Bigger Movie

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sharknado-4-poster-1Like Christmas and Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July, it seems that a new annual tradition has been added to the world’s list of celebrations—except this one involves high-velocity tornadoes and man-eating fish from the deep!

Tonight is the SyFy Channel broadcast premiere of Sharknado: The 4th Awakens, the latest entry in the bizarrely popular film franchise produced by low-budget “mockbuster” movie studio The Asylum. Franchise regulars Ian Ziering and Tara Reid return to battle the forces of nature, this time alongside guest stars David Hasselhoff (Knight Rider, Baywatch), Gary Busey (Predator 2), former supermodel Cheryl Tiegs, and Tommy Davidson (In Living Color). By the time the fight’s over, the Las Vegas Strip will never look the same—and will probably reek from the stench of decaying shark meat broiling in the Nevada sun. Ugh.

blood_feudSpeaking of the terrifying creatures that hunt mankind, and the plucky humans who battle them, have you met Pandora Zwieback, star of my StarWarp Concepts novel series The Saga of Pandora Zwieback? Pan is a 16-year-old Goth girl who’s spent the last decade being treated for mental health problems because she can see monsters. It’s only after she meets an immortal shape-shifter named Annie that Pan discovers she’s never been ill—her so-called “monstervision” is actually a supernatural gift that allows her to see into Gothopolis, the not-so-mythical shadow world that exists right alongside the human world. You’ll find Pan in the following titles:

The Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0: A free, downloadable comic that serves as an introduction to Pan and Annie—with an 8-page story written by me and illustrated by Eliseu Gouveia—as well as Pan’s first novel, Blood Feud (via a pair of preview chapters).

Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1: This critically acclaimed novel is the beginning of Pan’s story, explaining how she, her parents and friends, and Annie are drawn into a conflict among warring vampire clans searching for the key to an ultimate weapon (or so the legend goes)—a key that just so happens to have been delivered to the horror-themed museum owned by Pan’s father. It’s a character-driven action-fest that leads immediately into the second novel:

Blood-Reign-FinalCvrBlood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2: Pan and Annie face even greater challenges as the vampire clans draw up plans to go to war with humanity. Leading the charge is a fallen angel named Zaqiel, whose previous attempt at subjugating the world was stopped by Annie—who, back in the day, was Zaqiel’s lover! But Pan isn’t about to let some ancient monster win the day, not when the lives of her parents and friends—along with those of every human on the planet—are at stake, so she leads a charge of her own. But whose side is going to emerge the victor remains to be seen…

The Saga of Pandora Zwieback Annual #1: A spinoff from the novel series, this 56-page, full-color comic special finds the teenaged Goth adventuress battling vampires and a jealous, man-stealing siren. It features stories by me and Sholly Fisch (Scooby-Doo Team-Up), art by Eliseu Gouveia (The Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0), comic-art legend Ernie Colon (Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld), and Elizabeth Watasin (Charm School), and cover art by award-winning artist Henar Torinos (Mala Estrella).

Blood Feud, Blood Reign, and the Pan Annual are available in print and digital formats. Pandora Zwieback #0 is a digital exclusive. Visit their respective product pages for ordering information, as well as sample pages and chapters.