BRAND NEW Cemetery Dance Select Series Announced!

Cemetery Dance Select Series
Signed Limited Edition Hardcover Starter Bundle!

Receive ALL SIX of the launch titles for
this new series as they are published!
Save BIG off the retail price AND your shipping fees,
plus lock in matching numbers for your entire set!
Launch Titles Already 60% SOLD OUT!

Hi Folks!

Due to customer demand, we’re thrilled to announce our Cemetery Dance Select Series, an exclusive new line of signed hardcover Limited Edition books published by Cemetery Dance Publications!

Cemetery Dance Select SeriesEach volume features three to five short stories personally selected by the author as his or her favorites from a lifetime of work. Long-time fans will enjoy revisiting some classic tales. New readers will find this series a handy introduction to each author’s best work. Each volume also includes an exclusive afterword where the author explains the reasoning behind each selection, and provides insights into the writing of each story.

These signed Limited Edition hardcovers feature some of our lowest print runs ever and will be hand-numbered to increase the value of a complete set, so we expect this series to be a huge hit with collectors!

* The first six titles in this new series will be:

Cemetery Dance Select: Michael Marshall Smith
Cemetery Dance Select: Lisa Morton
Cemetery Dance Select: Terry Dowling
Cemetery Dance Select: Kealan Patrick Burke
Cemetery Dance Select: Peter Atkins
Cemetery Dance Select: Jeff Strand

* Special “Starter Bundle” Offer to Launch Your Collection and Save Your Budget!

Although each title can be ordered separately for the retail price of $30 plus shipping, for a very limited time only, you can reserve ALL SIX of these launch titles for one low price — plus, with this deal, you only pay a one-time heavily-discounted shipping fee that is considerably less than the shipping fee you would pay on individual orders. This is a great way to start your collection and save big at the same time!

Also, even though you’ll pay a much lower shipping fee with this bundle, each title will still ship to you as it is published — no waiting for all of the books to be ready!

So with this deal you’ll save big off the retail price, and even bigger off the shipping cost, and… maybe best of all… you’ll instantly lock in your book number to make your entire set more collectible! Whatever your book number is for the first title, you can continue to receive that number for as long as you want, which will help make your set even more valuable down the road!

We do not expect these very limited bundles to last long, so if you’re interested, please place your order today! After they’ve all sold, we won’t offer more!

Read more or place your order while our supplies last!

Thank you, as always, for your continued support and enthusiasm!

Brian Keene’s End of the Road: Balance

End of the Road

Welcome to End of the Road, a nine-month weekly column in which I talk about my ongoing cross-country promotional tour for my new novels Pressure and The Complex. If you’re just joining us, a quick recap—everything was going swimmingly and our hero was triumphant until he received a dire warning from what is either a) the spirit of his deceased best friend, or b) his subconscious tricking him into thinking it is the spirit of his deceased best friend. Since that warning, things have gone from swimmingly to terribly awry. Our hero—having consumed two bottles of bourbon after learning that a) a major signing has been cancelled, and b) he is now orphaned at his mainstream publisher (who published one of the books he is currently out on the road promoting)—is currently passed out in a hotel room in Chattanooga. We now rejoin the column, already in progress…Continue Reading

New CemeteryDance.com Website Updates & Features!

New CemeteryDance.com Website Updates & Features!
IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ!

Hi Folks!

We’re extremely pleased to report that the new CemeteryDance.com is running at just about 100% now. We’re still tweaking a few things, but in the meantime, here are some really important notes to keep in mind about the new website:

* Please do not worry that your “Order History” in your “My Account” is empty. That is a huge database that will take several weeks to be moved from the old server and imported to the new store. Regardless, the website is not how WE track your orders. We have an offline order management system that downloads the orders from the store, and that’s where we keep track of what you have on order, etc.

* When you redeem your Gift Certificates on the new website, the credit is instantly added to your customer account, so you do not need to redeem your Gift Certificate again on future orders! Your “store credit” will already be there in your account, just waiting for your next order.

* We’re adding some really neat photo features including multiple photos of products, so you can get a better sense of the look and feel of new books. You can click on any of the images to see them larger, too. Visit the Cemetery Dance #74/75 product page or the Darkness Whispers product page for an example of this feature in action.

* CemeteryDanceOnline.com is now part of CemeteryDance.com and growing faster than ever! Check it out today!

* There will be more new features to come, so please stay tuned! Thank you, as always, for your continued support and enthusiasm!

Visit the new CemeteryDance.com to get a feel for all of the changes!

A Halloween Thing A Day: All Hallows Read

hthing_bannerWe all have our Halloween traditions, whether it’s reading certain books, watching certain scary movies, having friends over for a bonfire, setting up a haunted house in your garage…we all have those things we anticipate each year as the scary season rolls around. A few years back, on his blog, Neil Gaiman proposed people adopt a new Halloween tradition: giving someone a scary book to read.Continue Reading

The Mad Monk of Comics: The Life of Alan Moore

comicvault_banner

alanmooreWith the Killing Joke movie selling like proverbial hot cakes, DC has managed to prove that what might be too risky for big screen adaption is a welcome addition to adult animation. Almost 28 years after the initial release of the graphic novel, the storyline is still considered one of the most pivotal stories in Batman history and has not only redefined the Caped Crusader but launched (with other notable works) the career of Alan Moore. But who is Alan Moore? What motivates the author to get up in the morning and what secrets does his beard keep? While we probably won’t know the answer to a lot of questions thanks in part to his propensity for being mysterious, we can at least look back at his history and make some educated guesses. Continue Reading

A Halloween Thing A Day: Essential Halloween Reads

hthing_banner

We’ve already done Halloween movies and Halloween television, and you might be listed to death at this point, but I couldn’t in good conscience do this column on a publisher’s website without including a solid list (or three) of Halloween reading recommendations.Continue Reading

Hearts in Suspension by Stephen King: New Book Announced!

Hearts in Suspension
by Stephen King
edited and with an introduction by Jim Bishop
Featuring King’s novella Hearts in Atlantis, a very long essay by King called “Five to One, One in Five,” four installments of King’s never-before-reprinted student newspaper column, “King’s Garbage Truck,” and essays from a dozen of his fellow classmates!

Hi Folks!

We’re extremely pleased to report that we’ll be getting copies of HEARTS IN SUSPENSION by Stephen King, a brand new book being published this November by the University of Maine Press.

We have NO idea what the print run might be for this unexpected new title, but given that the publisher is a small university press instead of King’s big New York publisher, it is very likely that the first printing will be TINY compared to most of his books. This could end up being a nice collector’s item!

Hearts in SuspensionAbout the Book:
STEPHEN KING REMEMBERS A LOST ATLANTIS

This publication marks the 50th anniversary of Stephen King’s entrance into the University of Maine at Orono in the fall of 1966. The accelerating war in Vietnam and great social upheaval at home exerted a profound impact on students of the period and deeply influenced King’s development as a writer and as a man.

King’s fictional treatment of this experience in his novella “Hearts in Atlantis” (reprinted in this volume) tracks his youthful avatar, Peter Riley, through the awakenings and heartbreak of his turbulent first year at UMaine. In his accompanying essay, “Five to One, One in Five,” written expressly for this volume, King sheds his fictional persona and takes on the challenge of a nonfiction return to his undergraduate experience. The stereoscopic combination of these narratives, told with King’s characteristic blend of canny insight and self-deprecating humor, create a revealing portrait of the artist as young man and a ground-level tableau of this highly charged time.

In addition, twelve fellow students and friends from King’s college days contribute personal narratives recalling their own experience of those years. These recollections—engaged, irreverent, and affecting—bring dimension and texture to the collective witnessing of a formative time in their lives and a defining moment in the country’s history.

This book also includes four installments of King’s never-before-reprinted student newspaper column, “King’s Garbage Truck.” These lively examples of King’s damn-the-torpedoes style, entertaining and shrewd in their youthful perceptions, more than hint at a talent about to take its place in the American literary landscape.

A gallery of period photographs and documents augments this volume.

Read more or place your order while our supplies last!

Thank you, as always, for your continued support and enthusiasm!

Review: ‘Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”: The Authorized Graphic Adaptation by Miles Hyman

lotterygnShirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”: The Authorized Graphic Adaptation by Miles Hyman
Hill and Wang (October 25, 2016)
160 pages; $30.00 hardcover; $16.00 paperback
Reviewed by Danica Davidson

Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is one of the most famous—and infamous—short stories of all time. People reading it for the first time aren’t prepared for the twist ending, and when it was first published in The New Yorker in 1948, it offended some people so much that they wanted their subscriptions canceled. Those not so easily offended, though, were riveted to the story, and those who couldn’t keep it out of their minds realized they’d been swept up by its power. Seventy years later, the story continues to haunt, and now it’s been adapted into graphic novel format, done by Jackson’s own grandson, Miles Hyman.Continue Reading

A Halloween Thing A Day: The Myers House (North Carolina)

myershousencEach year, fans from all over the country travel to California to visit a small house in Pasadena. It’s an unremarkable house, save for the fact that it’s immortalized on film as the house where six-year-old Michael Myers killed his sister, Judith.

Most fans are content to pose in front of the house for a few photos, maybe going so far as to do so while wearing a Michael Myers mask. Kenny Caperton took things a little farther. Kenny Caperton, a life-long fan of the Halloween franchise, built an exact replica of the Myers house in North Carolina.Continue Reading

Miles Hyman: Getting Graphic with Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”

lotterygnModern horror wouldn’t be what it is today without the influence of Shirley Jackson’s writing. Her grandson, Miles Hyman, pursued a career in art and has worked on many books and graphic novels, including a recent graphic novel adaptation of James Ellroy’s The Black Dahlia, published by Archaia. Now he’s releasing his graphic novel adaptation of “The Lottery,” out from Farrar, Straus and Giroux on October 25, to scare new readers and show old ones a new way of looking at the iconic short story.Continue Reading

A Halloween Thing A Day: The Monster Mask Catalog Archive

Ed Edmunds. Ben Cooper. Don Post. If these names mean something to you, you’re going to love today’s Halloween Thing.

When I was growing up, choosing a Halloween costume was accomplished by visiting a local store—in my case, the TG&Y—and picking something off the shelves. Back in the day, the costumes, usually vinyl suits with vacuform masks, came in boxes, with the eerily eyeless mask staring up through a cellophane-covered hole in the lid.Continue Reading

Review: ‘Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life’ by Ruth Franklin

Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin
Liveright (September 2016)
624 pages; $25.14 paperback; $16.05 e-book
Reviewed by Frank Michaels Errington

Admittedly, I don’t read a lot of biographies. Not my thing. Nothing against them, I just prefer to spend my time reading fiction. That being said, when I saw there was going to be a Shirley Jackson biography, I decided to get out of my comfort zone just a bit.Continue Reading

A Halloween Thing A Day: Terror on TV

In recent years, the weeks leading up to Halloween have become a period of frantic DVR cleansing. Whereas in the past we only had AMC’s week-long FearFest plus a handful of sporadic horror films on other channels to look forward to, the last couple of years have seen more and more stations up their horror content considerably during the month of October. This year promises a staggering amount of content—everything from the expected franchise marathons (Halloween, Friday the 13th) to the classic Universal horror films, a ton of kid-friendly scare fare, and much more.

Fortunately, there’s no need to wear out your remote control’s battery paging through your DVR guide in search of the good stuff. The kind folks at Nerd Much? have done the legwork, posting this comprehensive guide to televised terror—and they promise to update it as more networks release their schedules throughout the month. Keep an eye on it, and good luck in clearing out space on your DVR—you’re going to need it.

Blu Gilliand is the managing editor of Cemetery Dance Magazine and Cemetery Dance Online. He still has movies recorded on his DVR from last October that he didn’t get a chance to watch.

A Halloween Thing A Day: 31 Horror Movies in 31 Days

Welcome to A Halloween Thing A Day! Since we here at Cemetery Dance have a certain fondness for Halloween, we don’t think it’s right to only celebrate it one day out of the month. So, this year we’re celebrating it EVERY day of the month. That’s right—31 days of short films, urban legends, weird facts, spooky stories…everything we could dig up on the most wonderful time of the year. Gather close….take my hand…I have such sights to show you…

Halloween + the Internet = LISTS, all kinds of lists, but especially horror movie lists. Everybody has their recommendations for what spook shows should flicker across your television sets this time of year, and I could easily post 10, 20, a hundred links to such recommendations here. Instead, I went to the two sources I trust the most: Fangoria and Shock Waves.

If you’re reading this, chances are you’ve read at least one issue of Fangoria. I probably wouldn’t be DOING this if it weren’t for Fangoria, which (along with a guy named King) served as my gateway into this crazy genre. To me, Fangoria is and always will be THE guide to the world of horror films. So, when they put out a list of horror movies to watch during October, it’s an easy bet that it’s one I feel confident in sharing.

The list doesn’t go as “deep cut” as I might’ve expected from Fango, but it does cover a wide range of horror, from classic films like The Abominable Dr. Phibes to comedic takes like Return of the Living Dead to creature features like Pumpkinhead to remakes like The Fly and Tom Savini’s underrated Night of the Living Dead. It’s a great, accessible list you can’t go wrong with!

As much as I love and trust Fango, it’s always good to get a second opinion, and this time I got a second, third AND fourth opinion. Shock Waves is my favorite horror movie podcast going right now, and all three co-hosts recently compiled their individual lists of 31 movies ripe for Halloween: Rebekah McKendry, Rob Galluzzo, and Elric Kane. If you’re looking to challenge your horror palate with a few obscure films, some foreign fare, or some of those “misunderstood classics” that litter the horror genre, you’ll find plenty to choose from in their lists.

Mix and match from these lists, sub in your own favorites, or just watch John Carpenter’s Halloween 31 times in a row—you can’t go wrong! If you’ve got some movies that you want to recommend for the Halloween season, share ’em in the comments!

See you tomorrow with another Halloween Thing!

Blu Gilliand is the managing editor of Cemetery Dance Magazine and Cemetery Dance Online. Some of his “must-see” Halloween horrors include John Carpenter’s HalloweenTrick ‘r TreatFrankenstein and the Monster from Hell, and, of course, It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

Charlie the Choo-Choo by Beryl Evans AKA Stephen King!

Charlie the Choo-Choo
by Beryl Evans AKA Stephen King!

YES! The Famous Children’s Book from The Dark Tower Series!
Illustrated by Ned Dameron

Hi Folks!

Charlie the Choo ChooWe’re thrilled to announce we will be getting copies of CHARLIE THE CHOO-CHOO by Beryl Evans!

Who the heck is Beryl Evans? Fans of The Dark Tower probably remember!

This “children’s book” about Blaine the Train is written by… STEPHEN KING!

Yep! As a promotion for the upcoming Dark Tower movie, Stephen King is publishing the fictional CHARLIE THE CHOO-CHOO book that was originally discussed in the third Dark Tower novel, and the artwork for this project was created by well-known artist Ned Dameron!

Read more or place your order while our supplies last!

Thank you, as always, for your continued support and enthusiasm!