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Sunday, April 03, 2016

Shadow Games and Other Sinister Stories of Show Business available for pre-order!

"Shadow Games is a page-turning, gut-wrenching barnburner of a book."—Robert Bloch

Ed here: My first cousin Bobby Driscoll was a major child star of the late 1940s and early 1950s. He died at thirty of drugs. While I don't use any of Bobby's life in this novel I do look at child stardom here. Theses a slightly revised edition of Shadow Games (1992) which I wrote at the time I was writing scripts for two different directors and learning a little about the ways of Hwood.

Cover art © by JT Lindroos

"Shadow Games unflinchingly examines the dark side of humanity and reaches a finale that is both moving and terrifying."
—Ramsey Campbell

"What keeps you reading is not the traditional question of whodunit but the slick and artful ease with which Gorman portrays the alienated, uncaring world of his creation."

--The London Sunday Times

Cobey Daniels had it all. He was rich, he was young and he was the hottest star in the country. Then there was all that messy business with the teenage girl . . . and it all went to hell for Cobey.

But that was a few years ago. Now Cobey's pulled his life together again they're letting him out of the mental hospital and he's ready for his big comeback, but the past is still out there, waiting for him. Waiting to show Cobey a hell much more terrible than he could ever have imagined.

The American 90s come brutally alive: "Gorman knows how to shunt electricity into the raw nerve endings buried far below the reader's already clammy skin."
—Locus

© Ed Gorman

PRAISE FOR SHADOW GAMES

"Ed Gorman's is a strong and unique voice."
—Richard Matheson

"(Gorman) should be required reading for anyone who wants to experience the art of the short story as practiced by a master craftsman."
—Mystery News

"Gorman is the poet of dark suspense."
—The Bloomsbury Review

"John D. MacDonald meets Jim Thompson in a maelstrom of malicious evil and perverse maipulation that doesn't let up until the final few pages...thoughtful, tightly knit and elegantly structured."
—Million (UK)

"This is a bleak moral tale but written with such hot feeling and such cool style that it entertains even as it keens."
—Morning Star (UK)

Title Details:

RRP Price: £11.95
Publisher: Short, Scary Tales Publications
Release Date: May 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-909640-52-8 (6" x 9" Trade Paperback)
First Edition
Pages: 354

This brand new edition is available for pre-order from the Short, Scary Tales website. The first 100 copies sold direct from the site will be signed by me and the cover artist, JT Lindroos!

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Early reviews of the Warner Bros. release claim Zack Snyder tries to do too much in establishing cinematic universe

Early reviews of the Warner Bros. release claim Zack Snyder tries to do too much in establishing cinematic universe

“Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” better hope that bad reviews are not as dangerous as kryptonite.

The first in a planned series of DC Comics cinematic universe films currently holds a mere 40 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Of the 65 reviews counted at the time of this publishing, 39 are “Rotten” and 26 are “Fresh.”

Early reviews for the film, which opens this Friday, rip director Zack Snyder for cramming in as much story as possible, while also overdoing it with the visual effects.

Also Read: 'Batman v Superman' Review: Ben Affleck's Got the Cool Car, But Wonder Woman Steals the Show

TheWrap‘s Alonso Duralde wrote, “That face-off between two comics legends becomes but one in a series of big things bashing into other big things, which is what Snyder and writers Chris Terrio and David S. Goyer mistake for storytelling.”

Here are five more disappointing reviews.

Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune:

“‘You don’t owe this world a thing,’ [Diane] Lane tells Superman at one point. Maybe so. But at this point in the twinned mythologies of two extremely hardy DC heroes, humankind deserves a better blockbuster.”

Adam Graham of Detroit News:

“The movie crams together a Batman story, a Superman story and lays the groundwork for several side tales, all in the space of a cluttered two-and-a-half hour collision that aims to bludgeon viewers into submission.”

Also Read: 'Batman v Superman' Is Fandango's Top Pre-Selling Superhero Movie Ever

Mike Ryan of Uproxx:

“Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I was legitimately looking this forward to a movie that I found this dull. About halfway through this over two-and-a-half hour movie, I had to stop my brain from thinking about other things, like what groceries I needed to pick up at some point.”

Fionnuala Halligan of Screen Daily:

“Gorging on bombast and self-importance, swamped by its own mythology, ‘Batman v Superman’ is loud, sprawling, and distracted. The action jumps around almost as fast as a man can fly, but nowhere near as smoothly.”

Lou Lumenick of the New York Post:

“While ‘300’ maestro Snyder puts together some very striking scenes — which may be enough for many fanboys — they never really cohere into a whole. He literally throws in the kitchen sink in a film that frantically introduces characters and concepts while never clearly establishing the rules of the DC Comics universe.”

Also Read: 'Batman v Superman' Red Carpet Canceled in London After Brussels Attacks

But chances are, bad reviews will do nothing to deter audiences from flocking to the tentpole feature. The film will skyrocket to north of $150 million in its much-anticipated opening in the U.S. and Canada this weekend, industry analysts projected on Tuesday.

PRE ORDER SHADOWS GAMES

"Shadow Games is a page-turning, gut-wrenching barnburner of a book."—Robert Bloch

Ed here: My first cousin Bobby Driscoll was a major child movie star of the late 1940s and early 1950s. He died at thirty of drugs. While I don't use any of Bobby's life in this novel I do look at child stardom here. This is a slightly revised edition of Shadow Games (1992) which I wrote at the time when I was writing scripts for two different directors and learning a little about the ways of Hwood.

BTW Bobby is the star of the great film noir "The Window."

Cover art © by JT Lindroos

"Shadow Games unflinchingly examines the dark side of humanity and reaches a finale that is both moving and terrifying."

—Ramsey Campbell

"What keeps you reading is not the traditional question of whodunit but the slick and artful ease with which Gorman portrays the alienated, uncaring world of his creations."

--The London Sunday Times

Cobey Daniels had it all. He was rich, he was young and he was the hottest star in the country. Then there was all that messy business with the teenage girl . . . and it all went to hell for Cobey.  But that was a few years ago. Now Cobey's pulled his life together again they're letting him out of the mental hospital and he's ready for his big comeback, but the past is still out there, waiting for him. Waiting to show Cobey a hell much more terrible than he could ever have imagined.  

The American 90s come brutally alive: "Gorman knows how to shunt electricity into the raw nerve endings buried far below the reader's already clammy skin." —Locus
  © Ed Gorman   

PRAISE FOR SHADOW GAMES  
"Ed Gorman's is a strong and unique voice." —Richard Matheson  

"Gorman is the poet of dark suspense." —The Bloomsbury Review  

"John D. MacDonald meets Jim Thompson in a maelstrom of malicious evil and perverse maipulation that doesn't let up until the final few pages...thoughtful, tightly knit and elegantly structured." —Million (UK)  

"This is a bleak moral tale but written with such hot feeling and such cool style that it entertains even as it keens." —Morning Star (UK)   

Title Details:  
RRP Price: £11.95 Publisher: Short, Scary Tales Publications Release Date: May 1, 2016 
ISBN: 978-1-909640-52-8 (6" x 9" Trade Paperback) First Edition Pages: 354

This brand new edition is available for pre-order from the Short, Scary Tales website. The first 100 copies sold direct from the site will be signed by me and the cover artist, JT Lindroos!

Sunday, March 13, 2016

Shadow Games and Other Sinister Stories of Show Business available for pre-order!

"Shadow Games is a page-turning, gut-wrenching barnburner of a book."—Robert Bloch

"What keeps you reading is not the traditional question of whodunit but the slick and artful ease with which Gorman portrays the alienated, uncaring world of his creation."

--The London Sunday Times

Friday, March 04, 2016

The Inner Circle by Jonathan Fast

This novel came along shortly after the books of Stephen King launched the horror boom. If its storyline owes anything to a classic horror writer it's Robert Bloch. A) Because it concerns a diabolical plot that spans most of the last century and B) Because it's steeped in Holywood lore, this time circa 1979.

Louis Pinkle is a Los Angeles magazine writer who is peddling a screenplay every chance he gets. When his old friend and mega TV star Tony Valenti shows up at his apartment one night pleading to stay and insisting that somebody is trying to kill him, Pinkle manages to ease him out the door. Pinkle wakes up to read in the paper of his wealthy friend's death in an automobile accident. He of course believes that it was no accident at all.

Why I've enjoyed reading this book several times since its publication is not so much the plot, which works very well, but rather its grace notes, its rich human observations and the way Fast makes loopy LA architecture a real part of the story.

"There's a malady I call Dr. Chauvinism that everybody suffers from: my Dentist is The Best Dentist in New York City; the surgeon who did my uncle Murray's surgery is the best Surgeon on the East Coast..."

"I was going through a dry spell at the time, six or seven months without a woman. Celibacy in the East isn't isn't so bad, but out here in the West where the sun superheats your skin and the women walk around half or three-quarters naked, and every
billboard displays vast vistas of flawless flesh, it's worse."

"Once he said to me, `Kitty, are you scared of dying?' And I said, `Yes, I suppose I am. I've never thought about it much.' And he said, `Kitty, that's why I write so much. I think if I leave enough paper with my name on it, people will have to remember me after I'm dead.'"

Then there's a beautifully done scene when a detective visits the badly beaten Pinkle in the hospital. Now there are a lot of ways to write this scene but I've never read one like this before.

"I'll make this as brief as possible, Mr. Pinkle."

Asks him name, birth date, profession. After profession, cop says: "What do you think of Saul Bellow?"

"Bellow?"

"What's your opinion of his work?"

"I...I like it."

"But don't you think the Nobel prize should have gone to Graham Greene?"

"Maybe." His voice became animated and he began to gesture with his hands, enormous hands with black hairs on the back.

"What I mean is, Bellow is basically a photographer like Roth and many of the other modern Jewish writers. His prose is marvelously descriptive, but does he have anything to say?"

"I don't know. Does he?"

(Turns out the cop is in a writing class and offers to "share" his short stories with Pinkle.)

I was laughing out loud when I read this because when we were in a clinic one day waiting for the results of a test a doc came in with said results but decided that since I'd written writer for my occupation we'd do a little book chatting first. Carol finally said: "How did the test come out?"

I just like this book. I like the voice and I like the slant on life and I like the people. Fast wrote a number of science fiction novels in addition to this and then gave up fiction for teaching. Our loss. He had the touch.

Sunday, August 09, 2015

Two great websites remember Black Gate & Gravetapping Remembering Robert Bloch

Vintage Treasures: Midnight Pleasures by Robert Bloch

Thursday, July 23rd, 2015 | Posted by John ONeill

Ed here: John right. We sure have forgotten Robert Bloch. He was a huge influence on my generation especially.

Robert Bloch isn’t a name that gets tossed around much these days. Even before his death in 1994, he was primarily known as the author of Psycho, and this one fact overshadowed most of his other accomplishments.

But Bloch was also the author of hundreds of short stories, and over 30 novels, virtually all of which are out of print today. He was one of the most gifted and prolific short story writers in the horror field, and his best short stories are compact treasures. He won a Hugo Award for his 1958 story “That Hell-Bound Train,” and multiple Bram Stoker awards (for the 1993 collection The Early Fears, the novelette “The Scent of Vinegar,” and his 1993 memoir Once Around the Bloch.)

He received a World Fantasy Award in 1975 for Lifetime Achievement, and a Lifetime Achievement Bram Stoker Award in 1990.

Bloch was also one of the youngest members of The Lovecraft Circle, those writers who corresponded with and often consciously emulated H.P. Lovecraft. Lovecraft was one of the first to encourage Bloch’s writing, and a lot of Bloch’s early work for the pulps was Cthulhu Mythos fiction (most of which was gathered in his 1981 collection Mysteries of the Worm.)

Midnight Pleasures is one of Bloch’s last fiction collections (two more appeared before his death: Fear and Trembling in 1989, and The Early Fears in 1994). It’s a fine sample of late horror fiction from one of the best short story writers the genre has seen.

It was nominated for a 1987 Bram Stoker Award for Fiction Collection (it lost out to The Essential Ellison). It contains chiefly later short work, dating from 1977-1985, published in anthologies like New Terrors 2, Shadows, Masques, Analog Yearbook, Dark Forces, Chrysalis 3, and others.

It also includes one pulp story (from the August 1939 issue of Weird Tales), and two stories that appear here for the first time: “Comeback” and “Die–Nasty.”

Here’s the complete table of contents:

“The Rubber Room” (New Terrors 2, 1980)
“The Night Before Christmas” (Dark Forces, 1980)
“Pumpkin” (Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Magazine, November-December 1984)
“The Spoiled Wife” (Chrysalis 3, 1978)
“Oh Say Can You See–” (Analog Yearbook, 1978)
“But First These Words—” (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, May 1977)
“Picture” (Shadows, 1978)
“The Undead” (The Undead: The Book Sail, 16th Anniversary Catalogue, 1984)
“Comeback”
“Nocturne” (The First Chronicles of Greystone Bay, 1985)
“Die–Nasty”
“Pranks” (Halloween Horrors, 1986)
“Everybody Needs a Little Love” (Masques, 1984)
“The Totem-Pole” (Weird Tales, August 1939)
About the Author

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gravetapping from Ben Boulden

No Comment: "Spiderweb"

Posted: 09 Aug 2015 08:00 AM PDT

“Baker feared his boss, Klotscher feared God, Mrs. Annixter feared cancer, which was a polite term for syphilis, which was a polite term for intercourse, which was a polite term for the Sin Against the Holy Ghost, which was a polite term for the fact that she really enjoyed it. By a strange coincidence, Mr. Annixter was a patient too, and he feared—Mrs. Annixter.”

[No Comment is a series of posts featuring passages from both fiction and non-fiction that caught my attention. It may be the idea, the texture, or the presence that grabbed my eye. There is no analysis provided, and it invariably is out of context—since the paragraph before and after are never included. ]

Purchase a copy of the Hard Case Crime edition of Shooting Star / Spiderweb at Amazon.

Friday, June 26, 2015

Gravetapping: GRAVES' RETREAT / NIGHT OF SHADOWS by Ed Gorman

GRAVES' RETREAT /

NIGHT OF SHADOWS by Ed Gorman

from Ben Boulden on Gravetapping

I don’t write as much about Stark House Press
as I should.
It is a fantastic publisher that specializes
in reprinting great novels from the
paperback golden age—by Harry Whittington,
Clifton Adams, Gil Brewer, Day Keene, etc.
—great novels from the more recent past—
by Bill Pronzini, Robert J. Randisi, Ed Gorman
—and even a handful of original titles—
by Charlie Stella, Dana King, Jada M. Davis.

Stark House’s most recent release is a double novel featuring two superb historical mysteries—both were originally marketed as Westerns, but “historical mystery” is a much better fit—titled Graves’ Retreat and Night of Shadows. The setting, for both, is Cedar Rapids, Iowa of the late-Nineteenth century, and it is described with an admiring and sentimental hand—

“[A] place the mayor called, with monotonous determination,
‘the Chicago of Iowa.’”

Graves’ Retreat was originally published in 1989 by the long gone Doubleday Western imprint Double D. The year is 1884. Baseball is fashionable across the country, and Cedar Rapids is no different. It has a municipal team providing thrills and trying to keep up with the frequent rule changes—

“It was not an easy game to play
because the rules kept changing.
It was those goddamn Easterners.”

The star is a young pitcher and bank teller named Les Graves. Les is building a good life, and would rather keep his past secret. His brother, T. Z., is a professional thief, and a few years earlier Les helped T. Z. rob a bank. Now T. Z. has found Les in Cedar Rapids and wants help robbing Les’ employer. To make matters worse Cedar Rapids is playing the best baseball team in the Midwest—Sterling, Illinois—on July 4^th, and Les has a history of nerves. A history that kept him out of the big leagues.

Graves’ Retreat is everything one expects from an Ed Gorman crime novel—clever, appealing, human, and sharp. The story is awash with blackmail, cold-blooded murder, and romance. Les isn’t a typical, larger-than-life, protagonist. He is scared and lost. He fears losing his Cedar Rapids life, his brother, and terrified of losing to Sterling. There are moments when the outcome, and Les’ role in it, are in doubt, and the climax is unexpected. The prose is Ed Gorman’s usual literate, tender, and tough style. My favorite line is the description of a Sterling pitcher named Fitzsimmons—

“He had a shanty-Irish face, which
meant he managed to
look innocent and mean at the same
time, and he had a smile he must
have practiced as often as he did his fast ball.”

Night of Shadows was originally published in 1990 by Double D. The year is 1894. The Cedar Rapids constabulary is expecting the arrival of an aging former lawman and gunfighter named Stephen Fuller. Fuller is visiting a dying childhood friend, and to avoid any trouble the police chief wants his visit short. A young police matron—

“Matrons were not, strictly speaking,
constables. True, matrons carried badges.
True, matrons had the power to arrest.
True, matrons were summoned to impose
law and order during times of emergency.
But they rarely worked outside the jail and
even more rarely participated in the
apprehension of criminals.”

—named Anna Tolan convinces the boss she is both capable and the best choice to escort Fuller around town. Anna’s job is to keep him out of trouble, but it doesn’t go smoothly. Fuller—an alcoholic and drunken storyteller of the highest order—wanders into a bar, having lost Anna, and finds neck deep trouble. He is the only suspect in the murder of a man who called him a liar (and threw whiskey in his face). He bolts the scene, leaving Anna, who is the only person in town that believes his innocence, to find the real killer, and clear his name.

Night of Shadows is something special. It is a police procedural featuring blackmail and murder, but it also has an unexpected element for a Western. A psychopath with a mother complex. It is reminiscent of Robert Bloch’s novel Psycho, and, as Mr. Gorman explains in the Introduction, it is an homage; and one Mr. Bloch approved. It is important to understand it isn’t Psycho set in Nineteenth century Iowa. Instead, it is a procedural with an investigation, which is performed in a manner that fits the era, and the story of a young woman performing what was then a male-only job.

The novel’s center is Anna. She is bright and capable. A student of the famous French detective Goron’s methods—careful crime scene examination, interrogation—which she uses to solve the crime. It is also sentimental, tender, and very human. The descriptions of Cedar Rapids are perceptive and bright. Fuller, his life and addictions, is drawn with a tenderness that avoids pity and engenders understanding.

Ed Gorman's blog

Sunday, April 03, 2016

Shadow Games and Other Sinister Stories of Show Business available for pre-order!

Shadow Games and Other Sinister Stories of Show Business available for pre-order!

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Early reviews of the Warner Bros. release claim Zack Snyder tries to do too much in establishing cinematic universe

Sunday, March 13, 2016

Shadow Games and Other Sinister Stories of Show Business available for pre-order!

Friday, March 04, 2016

The Inner Circle by Jonathan Fast

Sunday, August 09, 2015

Two great websites remember Black Gate & Gravetapping Remembering Robert Bloch

Vintage Treasures: Midnight Pleasures by Robert Bloch

Gravetapping from Ben Boulden

Friday, June 26, 2015

Gravetapping: GRAVES' RETREAT / NIGHT OF SHADOWS by Ed Gorman

GRAVES' RETREAT /

NIGHT OF SHADOWS by Ed Gorman

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