Search Results for: book club

Goth Chick News – 13 Questions for Author F. J. Lennon

Comments 0 Comment

A while back, I developed a crush on bad-boy musician and ghost hunter, Kane Pryce. And without examining the psychology behind that statement too closely, let me clarify that technically speaking, my crush is actually focused on Kane’s creator and storyteller extraordinaire, Mr. F. J. Lennon, author of Soul Trapper and Devil’s Gate. Normally the object of my obsessive stalking behavior that is part and parcel of the season simply becomes the center of a little shrine in the underground…

Read More Read More

Meeting Your Heroes: David Kyle

Comments 10 comments

There are a handful of people whom I credit with introducing me to science fiction. The first was my classmate John MacMaster, who brought me two science fiction novels when I was bedridden for a few days in the seventh grade. The second was Jacques Sadoul, whose 2000 A.D.: Illustrations From the Golden Age of Science Fiction Pulps turned my early curiosity into a full-fledged obsession with early SF and fantasy magazines. The third was Isaac Asimov, whose pulp anthology Before the Golden…

Read More Read More

Sax Rohmer’s The Adventures of Nayland Smith

Comments 0 Comment

Sir Denis Nayland Smith is the largely unsung protagonist of all of Sax Rohmer’s novels and stories featuring the notorious Dr. Fu Manchu. The brilliant Chinese criminal genius constantly overshadowed the stalwart British subject who did his best to route his megalomaniacal schemes over the course of thirteen novels and four shorter works published between 1912 and 1959. The legendary villain overshadowed Sir Denis to such a degree that many readers were unaware that the author showcased Smith without his…

Read More Read More

Goth Chick News: Chicago Comic Con 2012: The Best (Creepy Stuff) at the Con

Comments 1 comment

Once again, it’s time to welcome the pop-culture bacchanalia that is Wizard World’s Comic Con back to Chicago; and this year’s event was bigger and more chocked full of celebrities, costumes ,and other “things that make you go umm?” than ever before. Wizard World, Inc produces Comic Cons across North America that celebrate (and oh how they celebrate!) graphic novels, comic books, movies, TV shows, gaming, technology, toys, and social networking. The events feature celebrities from movies and TV, artists…

Read More Read More

New Treasures: Kim Newman’s Anno Dracula: The Bloody Red Baron

Comments 2 comments

Okay, technically, this is both a Vintage Treasure and a New Treasure. It’s a brand spanking new edition of a novel that came out nearly two decades ago, in 1995. But what a novel. The sequel to Anno Dracula, one of the most acclaimed vampire novels of the 90s — an alternate history in which Count Dracula has killed Van Helsing, married Queen Victoria, imposed a police state and launched a terrifying new era of British vampire domination — The Bloody Red Baron picks…

Read More Read More

Enjoying Vintage Comics with The Toon Treasury of Classic Children’s Comics

Comments 4 comments

One of the great things about the 21st Century? Cheap comic reprints (I know, that’s top of your list too, right?) Seriously. When I was growing up, if you wanted to know what happened in Amazing Spider-Man #65, you had to find someone five years older than you and pester the hell outta them until they told you. As comic archival systems went, it was crude and had little to recommend it. Not today. Now you have an embarrassment of choices. Want…

Read More Read More

Q&A With Tolkien and the Great War Author John Garth on Michael Martinez’ Middle-earth website

Comments 0 Comment

As a subscriber to the Mythsoc listserv, I was very grateful to find a link from Michael Martinez — proprietor of the fine Middle-earth.xenite.org website — to a recent interview conducted with J.R.R. Tolkien scholar, John Garth, author of Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth (Houghton Mifflin Company, 2003). It’s a fascinating read and worth checking out; you can find it here. Some reviewers have dubbed Tolkien and the Great War the best book on Tolkien that…

Read More Read More

A Wiscon Reading Report: The Best in Upcoming Fantasy

Comments 12 comments

Last weekend I drove to Madison, Wisconsin, for Wiscon, one of the best SF conventions in the Midwest. My travel companions were four young women, and the two-hour drive from Chicago was filled with enthusiastic discussions of My Little Pony, how to cook kale, the most satisfactory sexual positions, and who that hot-looking agent was. When I wasn’t driving I sat in the back and kept my mouth shut. You can learn a lot about life by keeping your mouth shut. For…

Read More Read More

Black Gate Goes to the Summer Movies: Battleship

Comments 14 comments

You sunk my interest. And so The Avengers gets another week at #1. Welcome to the Billion Dollar Club. Have a seat next to The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and watch that The Dark Knight doesn’t try to steal your popcorn. The question burning my mind as I left the theater after watching Battleship was: “Why ‘Fortunate Son’?” At the close of two hours of a rah-rah, fist pumping, pro-military glamor parade, why play one…

Read More Read More

LORE Returns from the Grave

Comments 6 comments

LORE is back! You can’t keep a good mag down. [Insert your own zombie joke here] Back in the 90s LORE was one of the coolest independently-produced horror mags to see the light of day, showcasing stellar talents like Harlan Ellison, Richard Corben, Brian Lumley, and the late, great Brian McNaughton, to name only a few. Recently LORE dug itself out of its own musty tomb and returned in an improved “2.0” version. I spoke with the mag’s co-founder Rod…

Read More Read More