Here's a nice interview with Stephen King regarding his next book which is called Doctor Sleep and is a sequel to The Shining.

http://shelf-life.ew.com/2013/02/01/stephen-king-the-shining-doctor-sleep-preview/

I must admit that The Shining is one of the few books of his that I've not read. Oddly, I read his and Peter Straub's sequel to The Talisman, Black House, before reading The Talisman. It didn't spoil my enjoyment. Black House was great. Then a year or two later I got around to reading The Talisman. That was such a great book. I'd say out of all of his works, my fave Stephen King book is IT. In fact, I'd say that's pretty much my fave book ever. I've read it a couple of times and I've do doubt that I will read it again. An epic story that is very scary and also so very moving.

Apparently Warners are trying to develop a film of it, but trying to adapt this for the cinema is a big mistake. It needs to be done for TV. The old Tommy Lee Wallace version that was made for TV was really bad. Even Tim Curry as Pennywise couldn't save it. The story interweaves too much for it to be done succesfully for cinema. But they should give it a budget for TV that is worthy of a theatrical release and shoot it the same and not tone it down. But, that will never happen so I can go on dreaming.

Postie!

I buy a lot of books. I'm addicted to them. My home is full of them. I try to keep my book buying under control as money is tight at the moment, so I limit myself to around twenty pounds or so each month. If I were buying new books, that wouldn't go very far. But, most of the time I get used ones and for twenty quid you can get quite a few. So, today the Postie delivered a couple of my latest purchases (with more to be delivered soon).

I saw Ak-Ack Macaque advertised in the current issue of SFX Magazine and thought man, I've got to get that! A gun totting monkey-man with an eye-patch and a cigar, how could I resist.

Now, look at the cover of the Guy N. Smith book. Fantastic. I'm a fan of Smith's books and I'm currently adding more of them to my collection. Sadly it doesn't say who the cover artist was but I intend to do a little digging online... I remember as a teenager, I'd go into my local WH Smiths and browse through the horror books and the cover's for Guy N. Smith's would leap out at me. Shaun Hutson was another who's covers were very vivid.

Byzantium Trailer

Neil Jordan's got a new vampire flick! Sadly, it's not a sequel to Interview With The Vampire, it's something called Byzantium. Mother and daughter vampires settle in a small coastal town, but their past comes back to haunt them, big style. I must admit, not all of Jordan's films appeal to me, but I do really love Interview and Company of Wolves, So I'd really love to see him make more like them. Byzantium certainly looks like a step in that direction. I did read that he was possibly in line to direct a live action version of Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book, then things changed and Henry Selick was going to do it as a stop-motion piece. Now it was announced online recently that Disney are now doing it as live action but with Ron Howard directing. Sigh... Anyway, that trailer.

Mark Gatiss Horror Europa

A couple of years ago, author Mark Gatiss presented a great three part documentary called History of Horror which was made for the BBC. To my shame, I've just discovered quite by accident that he's made another one which is all about euro horror and it was broadcasted last month.

I admire Gatiss' work a great deal as an author and a writer for TV. He has a lot of passion and knowledge for the sci-fi and horror genre and has a lot of interesting and intelligent things to say regarding it. Thank the Gods for youtube, and here it is. Enjoy. I certainly did.

HP Lovecraft: Fear of The Unknown

I do enjoy some Lovecraft. I have three omnibus editions of his works. It's been a very long time since I've read anything by him, so I'm thinking of making a point of reading one or two of his stories inbetween other books that I read.

I recently watched a wonderful documentary on him called Lovecraft: Fear of The Unknown. Made in 2008, it discusses his career, the impact of his works and also going into his personel life and beliefs. Now, I've never really known anything about his life and I found this aspect of the documentary very interesting. There's also plenty of interviews with other respected writers and film makers who discuss the impact of Lovecraft upon them.

In all, this is a great film and worth tracking down.

It's been a while, I know. I noticed that I had a whopping three visitors here on xmas day! Some curious souls wondering what, if anything, I had been up to. Sadly, there's not much to look at. I'll do my best to post here more often.

So, here's a link to a nice interview with author John Connolly. It's part one of six, and you can easily view the other parts once this one has ended.

I'm a big fan of Connelly's books, but I must admit I've fallen behind on reading him. The last one that I read was The Black Angel and that was quite a few years ago. I've picked up all of his books since then but just not gotten around to reading them. I plan to catch up very soon. His stories tread the line between crime and supernatural beautifully.

Here's a link to an interesting piece on selling your ideas/concepts/characters to your readers and getting them to emotionally invest into your stories.


http://io9.com/5833461/how-to-sell-your-readers-on-your-storys-main-ideas-in-x-easy-steps