Trick or Treat

Just three four FIVE fast things, as I’m spending most of the day being properly foolish:

  1. What I wouldn’t give to be hitting this haunted house.
  2. That Asimov’s with my “do(this)” is on the shelves (the cover’s below the fold here, here. click it to go to the site).
  3. This is great (“Reaper Madness”).
  4. I’ve got a post over at Slushpile today, here.
  5. The NBA’s going again, which, you’d think it’d greatl
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Slasher Prerequisites

Working on a new slasher right now, and leaning towards making it a screenplay, mainly so the form can keep it reined in for me, somewhat. Too, this time, I’m doing what I’ve never done: thinking it all through ahead of time. Which has involved a lot of re-watching, a lot of thinking. And, on the idea that reasoning from first principles (or at least memory) is somehow a pure way to get to something at least in the area of truth, I’ve been intentionall ducking Car…

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Joe R. Lansdale: the experience

Was lucky enough to host Joe Lansdale around town the last couple of days. Great guy, amazing writer, living legend, walking icon, Texas institution, bonified stuperstar, and all around nice guy. Anyway, below, four pics of his reading. Click on that little flash/arrow button-player thingamawhatever, too, and bam, listen to him read and discuss and just generally entertain. There may be thirty or so seconds of cluttered silence up front, but that’s just because I h…

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Z is for Xombie / Zombie Bake-Off

That novel I started all the way back in . . . was it August? Finally tapped out those final words on it. According to my handy-dandy Word stats, it took me some 30133 minutes to do it, too. If I knew what to divide that by, or how to divide, I could figure something out. Revision number ‘525’ too. Not sure what counts as a ‘revision,’ though. Anyway, it started out as Zombie Bake-Off, and who knows, may go back there. Tonight I’m liking Z IS FOR XOMBIE, …

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Couple of mags

Couple that I’m in, I mean, that are just out, and that I only have links for, no cool scans of the covers:

  • Fourth River. Story called “The Mourners” and then a short-thing, “Between.”
  • Kaleidotrope. Story here’s “Pistil, Stamen, Bloom.”
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Severance

severance poster

Movies like this just make me break out my lists, look for a place to wedge this movie, so it can be that much closer to my heart. Which, I know it’s got to be an almost-empty statement by now, but, using Feast as my touchstone, and acknowledging that Leslie Vernon was the best since, and Save the Green Planet the best since Leslie Vernon, then, Severance, it’s the best since Green Planet, for me. Just did every last single thing right, I think. I mean, no, it’s not …

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Conditional Axe

Jeff Stolarcyk over at Conditional Axe has some bad news: Trick R’ Treat, much like All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, has been bumped to some indefinite time later. Very sad. Now Saw 4‘ll have to do. But I trust it will, too. A very tight series so far, I think. And, just back from Resident Evil: Extinction,* and same for it: excellent; high marks for the whole . . . I guess trilogy so far, though ‘series’ might work too. I suspect ‘trilogy,’ thoug…

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Yellow Medicine Review

Last time I was talking about this, the excellent cover wasn’t posted yet. It is now. Clickable.

YMR2

Reason I’m not in the listed contributors is that I edited it.…

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Darkscribe Magazine

Darkscribe. You’ve got to say it with that perfect pause, like in CSNY’s “Dark Star.” And this place is just as cool. Just all kinds of goodness, and, as well as the site’s put together, I’d guess it’s going to be around a while. Anyway, today’s the drop date for it. Too, I’ve got a piece in it, here. “Dark Genre Roundtable,” the topic being remakes. And, just to go the main page, click below:

darkscribe logo

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The Empire Never Died

What I scribbled down in my trusty notebook*, moments after finishing all of INLAND EMPIRE when I really only meant to watch thirty minutes or so:

A girl’s gotten pregnant and not by the guy she’s with. She’s haunted by ‘Krimp’ — a ‘crimp’ in the umbilical cord — and by a screwdriver to the stomach, both images of losing the baby, possibly to the violence of her jealous husband, boyfriend, whatever he is. So she, the in

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