Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Odds and Ends

I just got Horror Fiction Review #12, and was surprised to see I was mentioned three times, twice for “Life’s Work”and once for “Deadnecks” from Dark Discoveries #6. And it was all favorable. :^)

HFR, as I’ve said before, is a nice little ‘zine. It reminds me a lot of the fanzines I read in the 80s,particulary the classic pulp ‘zine, Echoes. Nice work by Nick Cato and crew.

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I finished Stephen King's The Cell on Saturday. It was quite a read. I hear a lot of people say about any new King, "It's not as good as The Stand/Salem's Lot/The Shining." And they're usually right. But those novels, classics all, seem to grow in stature the more distant we are from actually reading them. So The Cell is a good book, but not a classic like The Stand/Salem's Lot/The Shining. If you have hesitated to buy it, don't. If you like King, you'll race through The Cell. There is no one in horror or popular fiction who creates characters who are as relatable as King's.

It was interesting to find situations in The Cell that bore some resemblance to a book Dave Wilbanks and I wrote last year. Hey, can we sue him, claiming he used telepathy to steal our ideas?

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I'm sick, with a fever and the mind warping sensations that go along with it. This shall pass, but posting may be sporadic (or increase in frequency; you never can tell where the fever might take you).

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