Category Archives: Reading

Summer Reading Suggestions

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The end of summer 2012 may be approaching, but that’s no reason you can’t fit a few more books into your reading list. And it doesn’t all have to be about Twilight and The Hunger Games and 50 Shades of Gray (for you mature readers out there)—there are plenty of other fascinating stories to lose yourself in until September, some of them outright classics of dark fantasy.

Here’s a brief list of books that I highly recommend. And don’t let the ages of some of their protagonists fool you into thinking they’re for middle grade readers—these are certainly no kiddie stories!

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, by Stephen King: Nine-year-old city girl Trisha McFarland wanders off a forest path after arguing with her mom and gets completely lost—then things get really bad. Something stalks her through the woods, and it’s only her love for real-life (now former) Boston Red Sox relief pitcher Tom “Flash” Gordon that keeps Trisha going through all her freaky adventures.

 

 

Cycle of the Werewolf, also by Stephen King, with spectacular full-color illustrations by horror comics master Berni Wrightson. There’s a werewolf on the loose in Tarker Mills, Maine, and the only person who can stop it is 11-year-old Marty Coslaw, who’s a paraplegic. But even though he’s confined to a wheelchair, Marty’s smart enough, and brave enough, to discover the werewolf’s identity. Now if he can just kill it before it kills him…

 

 

’Salem’s Lot, by Stephen King: Before his ode to wolfmen, King wrote this scary tale of vampires in small-town America. Writer Ben Mears returns to ’Salem’s Lot (original name: Jerusalem’s Lot), the small Maine town where he grew up—just in time to face a sudden outbreak of vampirism. It’s Dracula living in The House on Haunted Hill, and the horror never lets up. Forget the emo, sparkly kind of bloodsuckers and read about honest-to-goodness monsters striking from the shadows.

 

 

True Grit, by Charles Portis: Yes, I’ve got a Western on this list, and it’s the very novel that served as the basis for two movie adaptations. Although the films were more focused on John Wayne’s and Jeff Bridges’s respective portrayals of U.S. marshal “Rooster” Cogburn, the novel really makes it clear that this is the story of Mattie Ross, a 14-year-old girl searching for her father’s killer. Mattie’s a strong female character who knows what she wants, with a sense of humor so dry it makes her a little too straitlaced at times, but it’s a fast-paced, enjoyable adventure.

 

Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury: A classic of dark-fantasy fiction. As Halloween approaches, Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show rolls into Green Town, Illinois. The “dark carnival” holds some ominous and terrifying surprises, and when weird and evil events start to affect the people of Green Town, it’s up to two 13-year-old boys—Jim Nightshade and his best friend, William Halloway—to save everyone. Bradbury’s prose is almost poetic at times, and the story sucks you in from page one.  If you’ve never read it before, do so now; if you have read it before, read it again.

 

The Second Greatest Story Ever Told, by Giorman Bechard: Not a horror tale but a humorous novel about the sort-of Second Coming—only this time God sends down his daughter, Ilona, to straighten out the modern-day world and introduce the Eleventh Commandment: Be Kind. Born in Cooperstown, New York (home of the Baseball Hall of Fame), she becomes a New York Mets fan, appears on the David Letterman show, becomes a spokesperson for a soda company, and tries to update the Catholic Church (which the Pope isn’t too thrilled about). It’s funny and dramatic, and was the novel that opened my eyes to how a writer can put aspects of themselves into their characters—a major influence on how I approached my writing from then on. (It’s available for Kindle and Nook, by the way.)

A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess: This one is really more for adults and older teens because of the sex, violence, and drug use involved, but it’s a fascinating, gritty tale about Alex, a sociopathic teen, and how society tries to “fix” him. Burgess plays with the language, inventing words and phrases that, at first, are a little difficult to decipher; but as the story progresses, you’re quickly able to understand what Alex is talking about. And if you’ve ever seen the Stanley Kubrick movie adaptation, you can’t help but “hear” Alex’s first-person narration in the voice of Malcolm McDowell, the actor who played him.

And, just so this isn’t a list of other publishers’ books, here are a couple of classics that are available from StarWarp Concepts, home of The Saga of Pandora Zwieback:

Carmilla, by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu: One of the first female vampire tales, originally published in 1872, and an inspiration for Bram Stoker when he created the vampire brides in Dracula. It’s also considered to be the first lesbian vampire story, because of Carmilla’s obsession with her latest friend/victim, the protagonist Laura, but there’s no sex involved, just impassioned pleas for love. SWC released its version of this Gothic dark fantasy last year, and it features black-and-white illustrations by Eliseu Gouveia, artist of the comic The Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0. You can find information on the SWC edition here.

 

A Princess of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs: The first in the ten-book “John Carter of Mars” novel series, originally published in 1912, and the inspiration for Disney’s 2012 film adaptation, John Carter. A Civil War veteran finds himself transported to the red planet, where he winds up fighting what seems like half its population (both human and alien) for the love of Dejah Thoris—who’s no damsel in distress but a warrior princess! SWC released its own edition this past March and, like Carmilla, the book features black-and-white illustrations by Eliseu Gouveia. Princess is great pulp adventure, and I’m not just saying that because I published a version of it—I tore through the Mars novels back in high school, and they’re still worth reading. You can find information on the SWC edition here.

So what are you waiting for? You’ve still got another month left before fall arrives—get to reading!

You’re Supposed to Encourage Them, Y’know…

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Ever since I got involved in book publishing, I’ve subscribed to the Publishers Weekly newsletter. (PW is a magazine that’s the bible for the industry—sort of a combination New York Times Book Review and literary Entertainment Weekly.) In one of the recent newsletters, there was a link to an article by bookstore owner Josie Leavitt, titled “She’s Not a Strong Reader”

“…after two failed attempts to get the book [the teenage girl] wanted, she finally let me help her. I got her a wonderful stack of Libba Bray and Sarah Dessen and left her alone, only to have her mother announce to me, ‘She’s not a strong reader.’ As if that explained why her daughter was taking her time to choose the right book.”

And that reminded me of a similar encounter I had at the 2005 San Diego Comic Con, only in this case it involved a young boy (maybe 10 years old) and a copy of a Young Adult novel that I was selling at my booth: Spider-Man Super-Thriller: Warrior’s Revenge.

Now why, you ask, would I be selling copies of a book written by Neal Barrett Jr.? Simple—because Neal didn’t write it, I did. In fact, it was my first novel! (Long story short, Neal’s manuscript had been rejected by Marvel Comics’ licensing division, and I was brought in to write an entirely new manuscript. Problem was, the covers had already been printed, so no author credit for me.)

Anyway, the boy’s eyes made a slow pass across the table and then locked on the Spidey cover. (It is pretty eye-catching, thanks to the great work of artists Mike Zeck and Phil Zimelman.) He picked up the book.

“It’s a novel,” I told him. “Spider-Man and the Hulk fight the Super-Skrull.”

His eyes got real big. He thumbed through it, liked what he saw, and told his father he wanted it.

And Dad balked.

“I don’t know…” He thumbed through it, too. “It’s not a comic book. Are you sure you’re gonna read it?”

“Yes!” the kid said. “I really want it!”

Dad frowned. “I don’t know…”

I was a little surprised by his reaction. I mean, after a dozen or so years of exhibiting at comic cons I’d gotten used to teens and adults grimacing when they realized that things like my other Marvel project X-Men: The Chaos Engine Trilogy and this Spidey adventure were actual books, with lots of words on the pages. Gah! How horrible that I actually expected them to read something without pictures! (Not that there weren’t some pictures—for Warrior’s Revenge, artist James Fry had provided ten fantastic illustrations.)

But here was a boy who saw all the words on the pages and still wanted to read it—and Dad was trying to discourage him? WTH, Dad?

“Y’know,” I said to the dad, “if he likes to read, that’s really not a bad thing.” The unspoken nudge being it would be a good thing to buy it for his son. (Besides, I was charging only three dollars—what a bargain! I mean, I recently saw a copy of it for sale at Amazon.com for $121.00!)

Dad sighed. “I guess…” He shrugged. “All right.”

He paid for the novel, I autographed it, and off the kid went, happily clutching his new book. And I stood at my booth and shook my head, wondering why any parent would want to discourage their child from reading.