And: Merry Christmas from Nevie Rose!

Definitely the most stylish member of our household.

Best smile, too.

Frankie's Xmas Surprise

From me and mine here at American Frankenstein to you and yours out there in Internetland, here's wishing you a great holiday weekend... with plenty of surprises!

While I'm at it, thanks to the great crew who are always close at hand to help me out with this blog. My wife (and best editor) Tia Travis, webslinger Minh Nguyen, ace illustrator Kevin Nordstorm, google guru/madly skilled library bud Sarah Vital, and all the great writers and publishing folk who've dropped in now and again to say howdy. Happy holidays, one and all!

Sunday Paper on a Saturday Night (or: Sunday Supplement 12/18/11)

Since this movie looks to be a dark twist on the mythic, you can imagine that the guy who wrote Dark Harvest might really want to see it before Christmas rolls around. Netflix is letting me down -- it's been at the top of my queue for three weeks, and it ain't comin'. Amazon, do your stuff.

If there's a rockabilly fan on your Xmas list, check out The Presley Sessions by Reid Jameson. Been playing this one a lot with the new Chris Isaak Sun Records tribute, and Jameson hangs right in there. Love the stripped-down acoustic feel, and his great versions (especially) of "Trying to Get to You" and "Is It So Strange." Uh-huh-huh. Methinks The King would be pleased.

Now it can be told: Rockin' Randy Fox spins the tale of the night Charlie Louvin met Jello Biafra... with auditory evidence included!

Back to Xmas... and just in case you're wondering. Favorite Scrooge: Alastair Sim. Runner up: Patrick Stewart. Weirdest: Jack Palance in Ebeneezer. And no, I'm not kidding. Jack Palance played Scrooge. Really. In a western. With Ebeneezer as a gunslinger. And card cheat.

The Actor Who Should Have Played Scrooge But Didn't: Boris Karloff. But we got him as the Grinch, so we came out ahead.

Talking to some of the college-age guys who work for me at the library, and the subject of Christmas action movies came up. They all knew Die Hard. Two out of three knew Lethal Weapon. But they'd never heard of First Blood, and only one of them had heard of Rambo. Wow. I officially feel old now.

Want some other Christmas movie recs? Check out my post from last year: Stalkin' Around the Christmas Tree. Enjoy!

The Horror in the Library

A co-worker left a watermelon on his desk last night. Innocent, unsuspecting... all alone in the dark.

This is what happened during the night shift.

Of course, I wouldn't do this for just anyone. But hey, this is Mike Jung, a fellow keyboard rattler and author of the forthcoming Geeks, Girls, and Secret Identities.* Which, if it's as cool as Mike is, will definitely be frosty.

*And, no... Mike's book won't be available in February. It's an October release, but you can go ahead and preorder it now. Why wait?

Test Drive Wildest Dreams

Thanks to Kevin Nordstrom for a great illo based on the opening scene from Wildest Dreams. Just a reminder that the one-week 99 cent sale on the WD eBook is winding down.

So click on over to Cemetery Dance and order up. And if you'd like to give the novel a test drive, you can check out the "Look Inside" link for the first chapter-and-a-half over on the Amazon page. You'll find out why the little girl in Kevin's illo isn't quite what she appears to be, but you won't find out what the stranger -- who just happens to be a hired killer named Clay Saunders -- has in that backpack. You'll have to order up to do that little trick... and thanks to all of you who've already done the job.

The 99 Cent Dream

Just wanted to thank everyone who's grabbed a copy of the Wildest Dreams eBook, on sale from Cemetery Dance this week for 99 cents. Yesterday over at Amazon, the book hit into the high 800s on the sales rank and charted at 19 on the Horror Bestsellers List.

Nice. Gracias! I appreciate it!

Most of all, I'm glad Wildest Dreams is getting a chance at a bigger audience. It was originally published as a 500 copy signed limited-edition, and those can disappear pretty fast. I'm glad folks who've been waiting for a less-expensive edition will now have a chance at it, and I hope you all enjoy it -- of the novels I've done, Dark Harvest and Wildest Dreams are my favorites.

Wildest Dreams: 99 Cents!

For the next week, my novel Wildest Dreams is discounted to just 99 CENTS at the Cemetery Dance Store, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble. This one's usually $4.99, so now's your chance to grab it if you missed the 500-copy limited edition (which is long out of print). Click on over to the CD store and buy direct, or use the links on that page to get to the online merchant of your choice.

Here's the flap-copy-orific scoop on Wildest Dreams, a dark-as-tar novel of hardboiled horror:

A storm is coming to Cliffside, California, and with it comes a killer.

His name is Clay Saunders, and he walks in two worlds. Born with a caul, Saunders sees ghosts. But to him, the world of the dead is very much like the world of the living. It's a realm of eternal pain -- inescapable and relentless -- that cuts as deeply as the razor edge of the hired killer's K-bar knife.

Saunders has spilled blood on Florida sand, and the snow-covered Canadian prairie, and the black lava of Hawaii. His latest target is Diabolos Whistler, leader of a satanic cult. Exiled in Mexico, Whistler is alone when Saunders stabs him just above the first vertebrae... alone, except for the mummies stacked like so much cordwood in his library.

But the living who await the killer's arrival in Cliffside are more frightening than the decayed corpses of the dead. There's Whistler's daughter Circe, a tattooed siren who leads Saunders to a bed of iron and satin... and Circe's bodyguard, a seven foot student of Egyptology whose sarcophagus rests in a redwood pyramid... and Janice Ravenwood, a medium with a startling hidden gift.

And there's a little girl, a ghost held prisoner by vengeful revenants. Only Clay Saunders can save her. To do that, he must bridge the worlds of the living and the dead in an unforgettable climax of darkness and blood.

Another Dance in the Cemetery

Slippin' into Darkness is this week's featured eBook over at the Cemetery Dance website. Thanks to everyone who grabbed a virtual copy yesterday after the email went out from the good folks in Maryland... judging from the numbers over at Amazon, looks like a bunch of you have done that.

To order the Slippin' eBook from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo, the Apple iBookstore, or CD directly, just click on this link to visit the product page on the Cemetery Dance website... and thanks. Great to see this novel available again!