World Horror Con 2016

World Horror Con 2016 in Provo Utah. It would be fair to call it an intimate con as writers present almost equaled the attendee's. Some of our panels - well pretty much all of them were sparsely attended but that's not always a bad thing. We definitely had more opportunity to have more personal conversations with fans - everyone's questions on panels could be addressed and we all got to spend a lot of time getting to know each other.


It was great to see so many writers and have a chance to chat with them. Very pleased that my friend Michael Collings was given his award. He has such an amazing body of work and deserved some recognition. When he gave me a positive review of Whispers Out of the Dust I was tickled pink.


I got to make some great new friends (like Linda Addison here) and I still sold a few books. I autographed even more because of some of the shared anthologies, like Redneck Eldritch, I think about half of the contributors were present at the Con.

There was a massive book signing Friday night and it was great to interact with everyone and chat while sgning books, here you can see Michael Arnzen juggling Sarah Seeley's brains. I also got some books signed by the likes of Darren Shan, Sanford Allen, Joe McKinney and artist Keith Thompson.


Friday night while Craig Nybo and the Freestyle Gargoyle band was setting up, I noticed a few people who got locked out of the hotel and came to their aid - Jack Ketchum, Michael Arnzen and Linda Addison - so that was cool.


The Freestyle Gargoyles jam was awesome, 7 authors gave creepy new spoken word pieces - Steve Diamond, Scott Tarbet, Nathan Shumate, Jason King, Holli Anderson, Dave Butler and me.


I gotta say thank you to Craig Nybo and the bad they were magnificent.


I was the finale and everyone said I rocked the house - I'm sure it will be available soon (Youtube, iTunes)  and I'll gladly share that.


I did pitch a project to an agent (it went very well)  and I'll definitely keep you all informed on that progress as it escalates. Hell, Dan Well's NYTimes bestselling author, told me he wants to read it and I said, I'd hold him to that for the sake of a blurb.



Saturday, my fire was dimmed when it was a No Show event for my reading, but I resolved to remind myself that writers gotta have thick skins and just keepin' on.



Later we did a Space Balrogs game, the attendance was sparse but the laughs were huge - much thanks to Callie Stoker for filling in she was hilarious - and then out of 9 audience members we had a three way tie! 3 people for all three panelists = unprecedented.  I don't think I could have pulled that off if Darren Shan hadn't been rooting for me.




Sunday I did a Western Horror panel that was awesome and afterward I moderated Why We Love Lovecraft panel - there were six panelists and seven audience members at first - it grew a little as it went on but among all the esteemed panelists, I had to incorporate audience member Keith Thompson who has done pre-production design work for Guillermo Del Toro and the ill fated "At the Mountains of Madness" movie - we all had to soak in his expertise and experience and the heartbreak for that not happening - so glad he came to listen and we could take advantage of that - he's a helluva nice guy and it was wonderful to talk with him.


Keith also did the monster in an hour panel with my buddy Carter Reid, I shoulda got a pic of Keith's creepy surreal art but I did get one of Carter's magnificent specimens.

Oh, and since Redneck Eldritch released during the con I was doing some online promotion and signing books there and I did keep tabs on the amazon rankings, the highest I saw was #11 in Horror anthologies so that makes me feel good! Thanks to everyone who bought a copy.

So all in all it was a great weekend made new friends, new contacts and hopefully reached a good handful of new fans.

Sanford Allen and me and the great Darren Shan.

the Lovecraft panel.

So Graphic!!!

I'm catching up on reviewing here and how about those graphic novels!

The Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath, by H.P. Lovecraft and I.N.J. Culbard

This was the last big Lovecraft story I had to read. I've had a tattered copy zebra copy somewhere and I had read sections of it before (I was cheating to get more on Nyarlathotep) and I am pleasantly
surprised at how much I truly enjoyed it - I gotta admit the cover for the Zebra edition I had was off putting and I wasn't sure how much I would like the long form of Lovecraft's work in regards to dreams rather than say The Dunwich Horror which is a favorite of mine. I would say Culbard's art is not the best but it does have a minimalist power to it that I do enjoy. He conveys a lot with dark and light that like Mignola is powerful. On the story side of things, I found that there was an upbeat positivity to it that I did not expect especially compared to other Lovecraft tales. This was a great book all the way around, I shall have to read the novel and I look forward to another adaption by Culbard The King in Yellow coming out next month.


Red Sonja: The Black Tower, by Frank Tieri and Cezar Razek

Right off the bat I gotta say Razek's art is great, he has that savage fluid motion and great character representation, he really brings the action to life. Tieri's writing which I have been a fan of for years is tight here - maybe too tight for a four issue limited series but with each closing issue I am glued and Need to know what happens next. Its all unexpected from the Sonja stories I've read before and I gotta see where this goes...
and when it does get to the finale, I am...disappointed.
It seemed a little too convenient and unexplained, perhaps I missed something but if I did it sure wasn't an easy miss. Still I haven't lost any faith in Tieri's writing because everything else has been so good.


Conan: The Phantoms of the Black Coast, by Victor Gischler and Attila Futaki

I read this quick, it has a fast pace and good action. I would not say its a great REH tale - Conan is not quite the Conan we know but he is close as pastiches go.
Conan is king of Aquilonia now and though it has been more than a decade he suddenly needs to be sure that he can put Belit's spirit to rest. OK, sure why not?
We have a mysterious sorceress and two acolytes that for the most part I thought were shoe horned in as I couldn't see what difference they truly made to the story - everything would have been just the same with or without them.
In a lot of ways it reminded me of your basic Savage Sword of Conan tale - that's not good or bad, but you know its just not great. The art is good and I liked the design work but this wasn't anything to call Crom about.


Hellboy: The Midnight Circus, by Mike Mignola and Duncan Fegredo and Dave Stewart

I am so far behind in my Hellboy reading - I still need to review/reread Hellboy in Hell - just not here right now. I wasn't expecting great things here with Midnight Circus in part because the young little Hellboy stuff is good but has never been my favorite by comparison, I've never been as interested in the little guy getting into mischief compared with other world shattering events, so my expectations were low.
Maybe that was a good thing, because this pleasantly surprised me. The art is fantastic ( a good second for Hellboy is it can't always be Mignola himself, and the mystery of the circus captivated me, Mignola keeps that esoteric charm alive, he has demons reciting Lord Byron at one point! I love the references in the Hellboy universe that give it that expansive charm, we are talking everything from Ray Bradbury, Pinocchio to Lobster Johnson and all those dark things keeping tabs on Red himself. Great book for Hellboy fans!


The Blade Itself, by Joe Abercrombie and Chuck Dixon and Andie Tong

I already love the original book and Chuck Dixon has been a favorite comic writer of mine for some time, Andie Tong is new to me but his art is good stuff. I've been wanting to get my hands on this collection for some time and I think it only became available domestically a little while ago, I've heard nothing about the series continuing but I sure hope it does.
We begin with basic introductions of our three main characters and like all of Abercrombies work - it ain't boring. We like people we shouldn't like and are excited to go on the journey with them. If anything I was truly disappointed that it ended so soon as I wanted to see more - I was waiting for Jezal's fight with Bremer Dan Gorst and I was hoping to see a little more of Fenris the Feared - not to mention everything with Logen Ninefingers that could fit into the book. Good stuff! Just too short!

Salt Lake Comic Con 2014

What a long strange trip its been. I have been all over over the place this year and now that the last big con I am going to is over its time to get back to work!

My most recent comment was an anonymous fan asking for me to finish my sequel to Heroes of the Fallen - it is coming, sorry for the delay. I'm going to try harder to post here at least once a week rather than just posting on facebook, twitter and tumblr. This needs to be a better catchall than just those other snowstorms.

In any case here are some highlights from SLCC - which was huge! My understanding is the numbers of people attending is right up there with SDCC or anywhere else for that matter so very cool! 120K+!

I got to meet Frank Frazetta Jr and the good guys at the Frazetta Museum Booth and get a few cool souvenirs!

Trolls were a problem as the WETA people brought quite a bit of LOTR goodness.

Lots of amazing cosplayers! Particular favorites of mine were Valerie Perez and Ivy Doomkitty

Being a presenter has its privileges, in the green room a number of celebrities were on hand and I hung out with Effren Ramirez (Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite) super fun and friendly guy!

I met Ron Perlman (one of my all time favorite actors!)

I nearly won the Space Balrogs, Supervillian Smackdown, but Dan Wells garnered just three more votes! And Jason King was hilarious!

Groot and Gamora! (Valerie Perez - so cool and nice!)

Daft Punk!

This guy was a stud! Great outfits!

Smaug's head was huge and ever watchful!

And selling books at a table with a host of awesome authors and friends including, Dave Butler, James Wymore, Craig Nybo, Sarah Seeley, Scott Tarbet, Jaleta Clegg, Sara Butler and Sean Ricks  - aside from their collective awesomeness was that the guys at UGEEK Magazine relaunched the magazine with a new action adventure fantasy serial of mine: Walking Through Walls. This went out to thousands of attendee's and I'm hoping even a decent fraction enjoy it and look at some of my other works. 

Lots of thanks to all the people that came by, said hey, asked for autographs and bought books, oh yeah and all the people who voted for me at the Supervillian Smackdown - We almost conquered the world!

I got to meet and hang out with far too many people to name them all, talked to so many great writers again - always love spending time with Peter Beagle. Til next time!

Merry Christmas!!!

Read Just Lately

The Necronomicon, The Book of Dead Names, edited by George Hay

I reread books I enjoy all the time, whether for research or pleasure, this is a little of both. I am working on something for the Swords & Mythos anthology and decided on a Abdul Alhazerd story. Abdul Alhazerd supposedly wrote the Necronomicon, well Al Azif anyway.
In any case, when I first purchased this book, I was only loosely aware of H.P. Lovecraft and his Mythos at all, I relatively knew nothing.
So of course I start reading the Necronomicon late at night in my grandfathers basement, yes I was very creeped out.
But it started a weird tales fascination that has never gone away. Unfortunately it took some number of years before I realized that DeCamp, Hays, Wilson and other contributors were all having a laugh-while the Lovecraftian analysis is as spot on as anything, all the essays contained purporting to be the authentic truth of the Necronomicon are the literary equivalent of a Mockumentary, and I ate it up a good dozen years ago.
Still, its good for rereading and preparing my own fiction.

Conan: Throne of Aquilonia, by Roy Thomas, Mike Hawthorne, Dan Panosian

Continuing on with the year long run of Roy Thomas and Conan's journey down the Road of Kings, most of this collection takes place in Tarantia, capitol of Aquilonia - hence the title.
We get some interesting side characters, and some nice teases for things that Conan fans know is coning years into the future. I did like the catacombs sequence though it had a few weakness's, and I thought the dragon was dispatched a bit too easily/quickly, but overall it was a decent spot.
Afterward Conan journey's on to Argos and we are given a great set up for Queen of the Black Coast - too bad I already know that arc is seriously bungled and I think I'll be skipping it. For a 1*-5* slot, I'd rate this a strong 3*+.

IRONWOLF: Fires of the Revolution, by Howard Chaykin and Mike Mignola

Thanks to Paul Macnamee for this copy.
I love Mignola's artwork, this had a futuristic steampunk thing going before steampunk was a household word. Granted this is by no means Mignola's best work, but it's still great, depth and shading all his wonderful hallmarks.
Chaykin's tale is interesting with flavors of the age of revolution mixed with somewhat current type drug and crime ridden conspiracies, yet it never really engaged me. I never found myself really drawn into the characters for good or bad, though not for lack of trying. There were a number of writerly tricks to get us interested but they didn't convince me. Good, but certainly not great. If I recall Paul, you said roughly the same thing, right?



By The Sword, by Richard Cohen 

This was an in depth review of all things relating to the history of the sword, from gladiators to musketeers to samurai to fencers and beyond. Cohen speaks from experience as an award winning Olympic fencer himself and the book is full of valuable anecdotes relating to what is truly a warriors art. Highly recommended for those researching more about the use of the sword and the history of great swordsmen.

Freakonomics, by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

The header also reads, A Rogue Economist Explore the Hidden Side of Everything.
This was a fascinating book, dwelling on why people do the things they do and how crunching the numbers gives a bigger picture over what people might answer makes them do what they do.
It can be two very different things and they don't even realize.
I sense I can't express this very well in a quick book review, but this is highly recommended.
The insights to life are well worth your time. I will be looking for follow up books by the authors.

Read Just Lately

The Lies of Locke Lamora, by Scott Lynch

A fantasy set almost entirely in a great city, we meet the dregs and witness their rise to greatness, as well as a number of spine-tingling  twists. The back-cover calls it a Robin Hood meets Oceans 11, but I couldn't help but see the Oliver Twist comparisons done with all the brutal wonder of a Guy Ritchie film (that is high praise from me if anyone wonders). Likeable rascals and tense action make this one of my favorite books I finished so far this year (yes, I have been savoring for awhile now).

This has to be the book I have been savoring the longest. I've been reading it in snatches here and there for a very long time not because it was slow or boring but because I was letting it seep into me. The finale of the last 100 pages or so was the fastest I went with the entire book. Sometimes I reread a chapter here and there.

Part of it is I can't be sure if I really liked the interludes and flashbacks or if they annoyed me-don't get me wrong there were still fascinating and filling out more of the story worldview-unlike a few other massive tome fantasy series, nothing here was just for window dressing and showing off-everything is vital. Still its not a form I think I would want to follow because of the stopping short in the narrative.

So it wasn't bad form, but I'm not sure I would want to ever try to do the same.

I'll have to grab the sequel soon, Lynch's style promises a lot of great things to come.

B.P.R.D. Killing Ground, by Mike Mignola, John Arcudi, and Guy Davis

Mignola doesn't let up in the action and horror with this continuation of the B.P.R.D.'s trials. Captain Daimo finally releases his inner demons and Johann Kraus is busy abusing his new human form and Liz is still haunted.

This may be a bad place to pick up if you haven't been following the series thus far, I'm realizing as I try to explain my review.

But who can't love a wendigo running wild in a super secret base?

King Conan: The Scarlet Citadel, by Robert E. Howard, adapted by Timothy Truman, Tomas Giorello, Jose Villarubia

I love Giorello's art, so much better than the current continuum who shall go nameless.

It's been a long, long time since I read the short story the Scarlet Citadel, and I recall a number of folks saying that Hour of the Dragon was derivative but eh? So what, its good at simply being what it is. The duel of opposing wizards is awesome, the dungeon and creatures therein are absolute revolutionary-nobody was doing that when REH wrote it. Being first of course makes it seem derivative when you look back so long ago.

Again with it being so long since I read the original I don't recall any significant changes from REH text. But I enjoyed it, SC has some great Conan imagery and twists.

The Fifth Column, by Ernest Hemingway

I reread this quick in part because of recently viewing Hemingway and Gellhorn, as well as always trying to retain some variety in my monthly readings. While Hemingway does have some adventure in these shorts its more about the human condition and emotion generating what people do in tough situations for good and bad.
The stories touch on humor which even in war is always present and I hope to be able to capture some of that in my own work, we are never too good to learn more from a master or amatuer-each for its own reasons.

How to Build Your Own Spaceship, by Piers Bizony

This is part historical and part present and part conjecture. How many of us read/heard you will work on the moon in bases in the future?
Its ridiculous of course, and Bizony spends quite a bit of time discussing the feasibility of the space race and future endeavors. To build your own space company you will have to bring in money and currently its all about tourism, though there is the thought of one day mining resources from asteroids and the moon - but then you get the legal mumbo jumbo of who owns the moon? There was an Outer Space Treaty in 1967 that actually states that no one nation can claim ownership of a celestial body-but when private companies start to have the ability to go up and get them-who is going to really be able to enforce such a ridiculous law? Aliens?

Overall this was a great book, a quick read with a wonderful rundown on a good variety of material, I learned a lot which is why I read it - research for the upcoming Lovecraftian Space opera collection
 ~ SPACE ELDRITCH!!!

Read Just Lately

Lost Cities & Ancient Mysteries of the Southwest, by David Hatcher Childress

The latest in the Lost Cities collection (I need to get the rest I'm missing) and this one is a doozy. Full of all the folktales, cryptids and legends that make the southwest mysterious and magical. As a fiction writer this is one of those books that is a must, an absolute goldmine of its own to grant inspiration and ideas. I had to keep stopping and taking notes whenever new ideas sprang into my head.

I can't recommend these Lost Cities books enough. I would have liked to have seen a little more of some of the legends I personally knew about from Utah/Arizona but then again I know those and a lot of the ones contained herein were new to me.

B.P.R.D. Garden of Souls vol.7, by Mike Mignola, John Arcudi and Guy Davis

The B.P.R.D. series was a little slow going to me in the beginning. I hungered for more Hellboy and that is what was denied me in this storyline with the rest of the characters. I have actually had most of the entire run for awhile now but wasn't super motivated to keep up the insatiable pace I did with Hellboy. That has started to change as I get farther on. The last collection Universal Machine was awesome and while I perhaps didn't like Garden of Souls quite as much it is still a serious page turner.

Abe follows strange clues that lead him to the jungles of Indonesia and we find out a whole lot more about Captain Daimio and this all ties into weird Dr. Moreau type creatures and awakening mummies.

Cahokia, by Timothy R. Pauketat

This gave me mixed feelings. On one hand it started out so very slow and tedious. I was disappointed that it had only a single map as far as graphics/illustrations --why not some of the artifacts it talks about so candidly? why not the fascinating Thebes Gap rock art panel-Its the oldest map in America! I had to hunt and hunt online to actually find the map-very, very cool. (And its only on pdf.) *[so hard I can't even find it again]

An awful lot contained is speculation and not even inspiring speculation-that the game chunkey somehow brought about the ancient American supercity? I find a sport doubtful (at best) at being what made the metropolis come together. Stories about the archaeologists themselves were what you might expect~ except for Preston Holder-he is awesome-he took a break from Cahokia for WW2 and convinced some retired headhunters/cannibals to get back into it and feed on the Japanese! Then after the war he went back to dig.

The last few chapters is what really made the book for me and I have to say that Pauketat is more open to the accomplishments of the ancient peoples than some more conservative diggers. I don't understand why some must deny that the ancients travelled all over the America's and traded everywhere, the evidence is there-get out of your box!

Snake Handlin' Man, by D.J. Butler (great cover by Carter Reid)

Book 2 in the Rock band Fights Evil series. There is no rest for the 'sort of' wicked. This time around our pulpy heroes are relaxing with a cup of java and such when a pregnant waitress gives birth to flying poisonous serpents, the same type mentioned in the bible that Moses had to ward off with his staff. In the RBFE series anything cropping up out of Hell is possible.

A number of Butler's fantastic fight scenes later we meet a snake handlin man and start to learn the awful truth about the snake worshipping cult of Apep. (I love that somebody is writing about Apep=Apophis besides me) These were some of my favorite moments in the book. The blending of myth, pseudo-Christian lore and just whacked out blues rock action.

I can't recommend these ebooks enough if you dig action packed occultic pulp!


The End of the Trail, by Robert E. Howard

I missed out on the Robert E. Howard weekend in Cross Plains, Texas again this year-I will make it one of these days when I can afford it. So I thought I would read the masters work again and this time around considering how many Porter tales I have been sending out, it felt best to read the westerns.

Favorites like The Dead Remember and The Man on the Ground I had read long ago. I also enjoyed Vultures of Wahpeton and I may stand alone but I lean toward the happy ending myself. To me the happier of the two possible endings does not take away from the impact of Corcoran's character nor any of the grimness overall. I couldn't help but think about the true tales of the west (dirty sheriffs like Henry Plummer) and how Vultures compares.

All in all Bison puts together a great collection that I know I will return time and again to.

Reading the Horror's Lately

My wife is home now-but she was in the hospital for days. We're out of the woods now but it was a little sketchy there for a bit.
I spent too much time in waiting rooms-long enough one day that the kindle ran out of power, but I read a bit...so

The Great God Pan, by Arthur Machen

This was one of those classic old Gothic horror's that I had meant to read for ages and never got around to. It is indeed gripping and disturbing on multiple levels-and to me so much more horrific than your typical slasher tale of today. The primeval and esoteric taint of something lingering into the modern world and bewitching across space and time is haunting. I understand its influence on so many other works of today. I recently watched the film Ghost Story (which I read Pan was a major influence) and now can't help but feel that Straub's Ghost Story was a very inferior retelling. Pan is very much so worth a read.

Styrbiorn the Strong, by E. R. Eddison

I liked Eddison's fanciful tale of a real historical viking, though it seemed a little slow getting going. As with everything of Eddison's its all about the prose, meter and timbre and you either like it or you don't. While I didn't enjoy it overall as much as I did The Worm Ourobourous, I still probably got into it better than most of Poul Anderson's works save The Broken Sword (there's no topping that).

B.P.R.D. The Universal Machine, by Mike Mignola and John Arcudi

This might be my favorite B.P.R.D. yet. I have enjoyed most everything Mignola has done, but B.P.R.D. while good still seemed to suffer from not having Hellboy, every tale I read made me wish Hellboy was in it-and while I still kinda feel that way-this tale was great even without him. The cleverness the twists were so enjoyable.

America's Secret War, by George Friedman

The only non-fiction I consumed just lately. This was written in 2004 by the founder of the intelligence think-tank Stratfor and deals primarily with America's involvement with a post 9/11 world. It does a marvelous job on explaining how we got where we are, why it will continue (because we won't change our foreign policy in way's that matter) and in my mind it lays out what is going to happen.

Now here is the frightening part (to me)

Everything that Stratfor says Al Qaeda wants to happen (destabilizing the middle east/world economies etc etc)-luckily they have not been able to bring about. But this was written in 2004.

Fast forward to 2011 and everything that has been happening is exactly what Stratfor says Al Qaeda wants to happen-it just took a little bit longer, but its going that way.

Buckle up. Very worth a read IF you are interested in geopolitics.

The King in Yellow, by Robert Chambers

Again an old book of Gothic horror. Some of the plots and tropes in these tales all revolving about the mysterious book about the King in Yellow may seem dated or even overdone but its because they were done here first. While I will admit that at times I thought I knew where the story was going and it gave some very bizarre interesting twists - with truly original (and haunting) characters, I can't see that the terror and horror was quite the same as the Great God Pan, still very worthwhile to peruse if such is your interest.