Wilum H. Pugmire Has Been Hospitalized !

I don't really know Wilum. I might have met him at a few conventions or not, but I do enjoy watching his YouYube videos. I've always enjoyed his thoughts on the horror world and community, his stories and experiences.

I got an e-mail today by Will Hart with some sad news about Wilum. This is what he had to say:

"The Greatest Living Lovecraftian Author - Wilum Hopfrog Pugmire - Has Been Hospitalized with Heart Disease in Seattle!

I just got word today, that 60-year-old Wilum has been admitted to a Seattle area Hospital due to the worsening condition of his heart disease.

It looks like his heart may be in worse shape than anyone imagined; so there is no way to tell how much time he still has left to share with us.

I spoke with him a few minutes ago by phone, and he said I could reveal that he is in the hospital; but he's not sure when (or if) he's going home from there.

He has no computer access in the hospital, but I hope everyone will keep him in their thoughts, prayers, emails, and blogs; and that we will all be aware of just how special a person he is, and how much he has brought to each of our lives.

Will Hart"

My thoughts and well-wishes are with Wilum and his loved ones. I hope you get better soon, Wilum. In honor of him, I've uploaded a favorite of his YouTube videos of mine below.

Malice by Griffin Hayes

Malice by Griffin Hayes

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I've been on a roll lately with my reading. One great book after another has passed through my hands all year, both independent and professional fields of publishing, too. When I decide to do my top ten reads of the year in month or so, it's going to be one of the most difficult lists I've ever had to make since I started recording these things.


One book that might make that list is Malice by Griffin Hayes. I felt a familiarity with the prose and characters almost right away. It reminded me of late summer nights I used to stay up and read the darkness away when I was a lonely teenager. Back then, I would read books from the likes of Dean Koontz, Robert McCammon, and Stephen King. Malice reminds me of them.


Lysander is the new kid in town. Right away he makes more than a few enemies, but he also makes some friends. Which is a good thing, because he's going to need their help. Something is after Lysander, something that is killing other people in town and making it look like suicide.



I don't want to go into too much more plot for fear of ruining things. But, let's just say that there are a few twists and turns and a lot of action along the way that will keep you guessing.


The two main characters interested me a lot, too. Both Lysander and Samantha were both the reason I was reminded of those other authors. Watching them develop and get out of the perilous dangers hunting them was a lot of fun. As this is a YA novel, I think that Hayes will have similar sixteen year old readers, identifying with always being the odd one, the outcast.







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Halloween 2011

For Halloween this year, Jen and I decided to decorate our dwelling with tombstones and zombies and pumpkins. It's the first time we've done this together; I'm not sure why we never really did so in the past. I think it was partly my fault. When I was a kid, my parents' never decorated for Halloween. So, technically, this was my first time.

Popping my Halloween decorating cherry went very well, too. I was a little nervous about carving the pumpkins. I have memories of trying to do so when I was a kid at school, and the horrifying results. The results of my pumpkin carving present day were pretty horrifying, too, but I'd say they turned out much better than those early, sloppy attempts.

It was fun carving them. Jen and I got ourselves some beer to keep our throats wet, put on some horror movies, and got to the slaughter. Here are some pictures of the end results:

This is my werewolf:

This is Jen's Cthulhu:

I fucked up his teeth, but here's my Jack Skellington face:

And Jen's haunted tree:

And finally, our outdoor display:

Okay, that's it. As you can see, Jen is much more talented at detail than I am. Who knows, maybe I'll choose some more complicated outlines next year. I'm not so sure that that's a good idea, though.

I hope that everyone's Halloween was as fun as mine was.

Coming soon: A review of Malice by Griffin Hayes. Plus some interesting news on my own writing front. I hope you stick around.

That Which Should Not Be!

That Which Should Not Be by Brett J. Talley

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I've been reviewing a few indie books lately. So far, they've all gotten four to five stars from me. Am I being easy on these writers, sympathizing with their independent ventures? Hell no. Of all the indie books I've read thus far, none have let me down. I'm sure that there is crap out there, crap meaning unedited writing that should is not, and perhaps never was ready for publishing, of which was the fear for small and/or self-published press before eBooks exploded onto the scene.

The latest one I've read is That Which Should Not Be, by Brett J. Talley. Let me tell you, this book is a brilliant mix of not just the Cthulhu Mythos, but many other myths and legends, religions and cults. While reading, I thought of Talley's book as an onion. You keep peeling back layers and layers of detailed, rich stories that's both fascinating and frightening. Yet the onion is one whole story. Talley obviously has a strong grasp upon the things he writes about, with the Cthulhu Mythos taking center stage, and it was a lot of fun to pick out all the Lovecraftian references, such as a boat named "Kadath".

We start the story with Carter (another reference), who is studying at Miskatonic University, of course. One of his professors has an important job for him. He must travel to an old port town called Anchorhead to retrieve a book called The Witch's Fire. This book, like the Necronomicon, is a dangerous tome, to be handled only by the most experienced of sorcerer. This leads Carter into an adventure where he is told tales of wonder and violent death at the hands of the Wengido, a cult, and an alternate universe on the sea. Each story brings us closer to the main story, and when it all comes together, it's like an explosion of tentacles and black, leathery wings.

If you enjoy the old classics by authors like Lovecraft and Blackwood, you will have no problem sinking into this one. It is, in the end, a terribly fun ride.




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The Hungry by Steven W. Booth and Harry Shannon

The Hungry by Steven W. Booth

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What makes this book a fun read is just that: It’s fun. It’s also full of action. Steve Hockensmith says in the first paragraph of the afterward: “What you hold in your hands is an adrenaline-fueled sprint through an obstacle course of horrors, and if you weren’t totally spent by the time you reached the last page of the story, you have stronger nerves than I.”

I cannot agree more.

I finished reading The Hungry a few days ago or more, but I had to wait to write my opinions of this story. At first I was a little disappointed, because the story is an expanded version of a short story found in Harry Shannon’s marvelous collection “A Host of Shadows”, so it felt like I was reading familiar material. Yet, once we got past the original short story, things blew up.

Literally.

And it never stopped.

The Hungry is like a punch in the face. It’s as though Romero’s Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead got married and had a baby and named it 28 Days Later. The story, in fact, was one of the most fun zombie stories I have ever read. I do not say this lightly.

Does it Involve a bad ass woman wearing a wedding dress as the cover suggests? Why, yes it does! Not only that, it is very interesting and somewhat comical as to why this woman, the story's protagonist, is wearing a wedding dress, and why she continues to have to wear the thing. Not only is the action jaw-dropping and terribly fun to read, the banter between characters makes this crazy ride even more fun.

This is my third book that I've read by Harry Shannon, and I am quickly becoming a fan. If this book is any indication of Steve Booth’s writing as well, I can’t wait to see what he can do on his own.

So, really, just get this book and read it. If you like fun and fast and action-packed, you will not be disappointed!




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Fleshbags by Gerald Rice

Fleshbags by Gerald Rice

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The zombie subgenre has really taken off in the last ten years. Personally, I thought it would have died five years ago, but today it’s still running strong. The zombie is like the vampire. Both creatures are undead, and yet we love them. We love them so much that it might take another ten years before we finally get bored of them, if ever.



Fifteen years ago, zombie literature was scarce. Today it’s everywhere. This brings me to Gerald Rice and his short gem of a novella, Fleshbags. The title of this book itself reeks of the undead, and what Gerald has managed to do with this story is not revolutionize the zombie market so much as help it evolve. His undead creatures are a different beast from your typical zombie, and it is really welcoming.



What I liked most about Fleshbags, however, were the interesting characters that populate the story. Loman is on a mission to get to his daughter from school and save her from the sudden outbreak that makes people strip naked and their stomachs to look like translucent sacks filled rotting organ tissue. Along the way he teams up with a person who wears all leather and a motorcycle helmet, the latter of which he/she never takes off. Ms. Mila is a teacher at Loman’s daughter’s school who hates the children she teaches. Bill and his wife, Sarah, notice that Mr. Anders is home early from work, which he never is, and that there seems to be something wrong with him. When Bill goes over to investigate, he finds much more than a sick man.



I once had a conversation with a friend about how zombies can be used for any metaphor the writer chooses, and Gerald Rice does a marvelous job of doing so in Fleshbags. The story, I thought at least, is about the dark things we store and lock away. Beneath the skin of every individual, there is something darker, perhaps even dangerous, lurking. There’s a secret behind every locked door you pass ignorantly by every day. Not only has Gerald created his own zombie, but he put them in a setting that was easy to believe, amongst humans, everyday people we all know, love and hate.



My biggest criticism is that this is a novella with a large cast. It was difficult at first to remember who was who and what they were doing, but once I caught on, it was one hell of a ride. I also would have liked it if some of the subplots were smoothed out more. But don't let these things deter you from what is very much a fun read. If you like zombies and the zombie subgenre, then I invite you to give Fleshbags a try. Do so, and you just might meet some interesting people.





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Ghosts

I just read a great blog post by James Everington, titled A Drunken Conversation About Ghost Stories.

This post brought back memories of when I was a kid, having conversations with friends about whether or not we believed in ghosts. These kind of conversations happened regularly, and inevitably the ghost stories would come out.

When I got older and began drinking with friends, the ghost stories became more and more animated. Yet, as I get older, the less people want to talk about ghosts. The people I know now either get too spooked about such topics or they are complete atheists.

Which is cool. I'm an agnostic in pretty much all matters regarding the supernatural and spiritual, myself, so I find both atheistic and theistic conversations about ghosts fascinating.

Here is my comment in James's blog post:

"Great post. I love a good ghost story, but I don't think I believe in them. That makes me sound indecisive.

What I mean is, I've seen and experienced some things in my life that I cannot explain. But I know that they could have been hallucinations. If they were not hallucinations, then that doesn't mean that the things I've seen were ghosts. I don't think we can know for sure until science proves it, or more than one person actually talks to a ghost at the same time."

The things I've seen and experienced, as I said above, could have been explained as anything but having seen something supernatural. There was one time, and I didn't mention this one because I wanted to write about it here, when a friend and I were sitting together in the basement of a mutual friend's home. I was on the phone with my girlfriend of the time and there was some music playing softly. The lights were very dim. Someone entered the basement. He was wearing a sweater with brown and white stripes. He sat down on the easy chair next to us, and then faded and disappeared.

As you can imagine, both me and my friend made a strained "ahhhhh!" sound at the same time. This, however, was reassuring; my friend had seen it too. If that wasn't bad enough, the figure came again, doing the exact same thing and eliciting more "ahhhhh!" sounds from us. My girlfriend, still on the phone, kept asking, "What's going on?" but I was too afraid to speak. I hung up on her and me and my friend took off upstairs where everyone else was.

Once we explained what had happened,, we were told by the people who live there that we had just met Bill, their ghost.

Despite having had this experience, I still realize that there might not be any such thing as ghosts. Granted, my friend saw it and reacted to it at the same time as I did, but the lights were so low as to be nearly nonexistent. There was just enough light to see the mans sweater, the white and the brown stripes. His face was lost in shadow.

I cannot explain what it was we saw that night, but I've thought about it a lot since. Ghosts, or things like it, could be anything from mere imprints we leave on space and time, or they could indeed be lost and confused spirits. It's certainly more fun to think of them as the latter, but when it comes down to it, I don't believe in ghosts.

I suspect they might exist, but that's just me. I spend a lot of time sitting on a fence, observing. One thing I do know, though, is that if I was an eccentric millionaire with time on my hands, I'd be a ghost investigator. The Skeptical type, but I'd do it nonetheless!