Quiet, tasteful covers such as this are part of what made Gorezone legendary.

The fine folks at Fangoria magazine made a quiet little announcement earlier this week that will be welcome news to gorehounds everywhere – they are bringing back Fango‘s sister publication, Gorezone.

Gorezone was a child of the late 1980s, when there was too much bloody goodness flooding theaters for Fangoria to handle alone. With horror output from the Hollywood studios coming at a rapid pace, the magazine was giving more space to sequels and slick serial killers like Freddy and Jason, which meant other stuff its readers were interested in – extreme horror, foreign horror, etc. – was getting squeezed out. So Gorezone was born to handle the overflow.

Apart from the covers, which sometimes featured Leatherface (or Freddy or Jason) but were more likely to have nasty FX shots from more obscure films, Gorezone became a fan favorite (and frequent censor target) thanks to columns from the likes of Chas. Balun and Tim Lucas, more in-depth articles on special effects, and its refusal to shy away from any photograph, no matter how bloody or gross. I mean, they called it Gorezone – what did people expect?

The magazine had a short run beginning in the late 1980s before being shelved, but it’s still a fan-favorite today. And now it’s coming back as a bi-monthly publication. It won’t be available on newsstands, but copies and subscriptions will be available through Fangoria‘s website. Keep an eye on that site for more details, including a date for the first issue, as they become available.

This won’t be the first time I’ve talked about Peter Bracke’s excellent book on the Friday the 13th franchise, Crystal Lake Memories. But it is the first time I’ve talked about the film documentary that’s coming to serve as sort of a companion piece to this companion piece. It’s also called Crystal Lake Memories, and a release date of August 27 has been announced. Also announced: a running time of over seven (7) hours.

Process that for a second. SEVEN FULL HOURS of behind-the-scenes goodness. Some of it, I’m sure, will be stuff that’s been seen before (there’s a lot of stuff out there thanks to the various home video releases these movies have enjoyed over the years). It will certainly sound like overkill to many, but I have no doubt there are fans out there ardent enough to mainline the entire thing in one sitting. (You know, fans like this.)

It’s coming out on Blu-ray only, and the pre-sale begins in July. You can find all the pertinent details here, and can check out the documentary’s official website here. You can also still order the book that started it all right here, and let me tell you – if this kind of thing is your thing, you won’t be sorry.

I’m honestly hard-pressed to explain why I love these movies as much as I do. There are tons of reasons not to like them. But there’s something about them, especially those first four (before Jason went full-on superpowered zombie, and was really just an insane man in a mask) that strike a chord with me. There are scenes and images in those early entries that are frightening to me on a primal level. Some of the others are just pure fun.

At any rate, if you’re fond of the fellow in the hockey mask, be sure and check out this upcoming documentary. It’s from the same production team that produced the amazing Never Sleep Again, which examined the Nightmare on Elm Street series in ridiculous detail. I expect it will be well worth our time.

Well, it’s here.

The publisher announced today a new collaboration between Stephen King and artist Glenn Chadbourne, the black-and-white specialist who has worked on a number of King projects for CD, including their Secretary of Dreams books. This latest venture is the first hardcover publication of King’s poem “The Dark Man,” a piece the author wrote in college about a character who would later come to figure prominently in much of his work. We’re talking, of course, about The Walkin’ Dude, Randall Flagg.

There are a number of editions on the way (and quickly, as CD’s website has at least the trade version listed for a July release), ranging from a $25 bookstore edition all the way to a deluxe signed edition that will run you a cool $1,750. All the details and ordering instructions can be found at the links above.

Between this and yesterday’s Joyland news, it’s been a big – and expensive – couple of days for King collectors. The good news for the average fan (such as your humble host) is that these new works will also be available in affordable additions that may not have all the bells and whistles, but will have the most important part – the story. As these books hit the shelves, please feel free to let us know which editions you grab and what you think of them.

Subterranean Press has released special editions of Hard Case Crime books in the past, but these appear to be directly produced by Titan. The three editions are:

• A signed, lettered hardcover edition, limited to 26 copies, signed by King, housed in a clamshell box and featuring the Hard Case Crime logo in gold foil;
• A signed, numbered hardcover edition, limited to 724 copies, signed by King; and
• An unsigned hardcover edition limited to 1,500 copies.

All editions will feature artwork by Robert McGinnis and a map of Joyland, the amusement park that serves as the novel’s setting, by Susan Hunt Yule.

Here’s the synopsis straight from Hard Case Crime:

College student Devin Jones took the summer job at Joyland hoping to forget the girl who broke his heart. But he wound up facing something far more terrible: the legacy of a vicious murder, the fate of a dying child, and dark truths about life—and what comes after—that would change his world forever.

A riveting story about love and loss, about growing up and growing old—and about those who don’t get to do either because death comes for them before their time—JOYLAND is Stephen King at the peak of his storytelling powers. With all the emotional impact of King masterpieces such as The Green Mile and The Shawshank Redemption, JOYLAND is at once a mystery, a horror story, and a bittersweet coming-of-age novel, one that will leave even the most hard-boiled reader profoundly moved.

The paperback version is set for a June 4 release, and these special editions are listed as coming out on June 11. I’d suggest jumping on these quickly if you’re interested, as Stephen King special editions don’t tend to stay available for long.

Horror stories are more often than not filled with things unseen. Ghosts, the past, regrets, the threat just around the corner – these are things with no tangible presence, yet they can have a very tangible effect on people.

In “Invisible,” Nancy Kilpatrick examines the ways we find to make the people around us disappear, reducing them to an intangible presence in the hopes of minimizing their impact on us. Sometimes it’s someone considered “beneath us,” a person performing some menial task for us like bringing our food to the table and refilling our coffee cup. Other times it’s someone who needs – or needed – our help.

“Invisible” is also a story about the staggering weight of grief and loss, two other things we might wish we could make disappear. Perhaps we can deny it attention, just as we look away from some people, but these  are things that won’t be denied. Grief and loss have a way of weighing you down whether you acknowledge it or not.

“Invisible” is a quiet, contemplative piece. Kilpatrick teases us through the story with a mounting sense of dread that builds to a subdued but effective payoff. It’s easily one of the most memorable and effective stories in this collection.

More reviews from The Devil’s Coattails.

*A little background on Short Story Reviews, and why I’m doing them this way*

Thus you have shows on which overweight people lose large amounts of weight in seemingly unhealthy amounts of time; on which people win ungodly sums of money through manipulation, deceitfulness, and their mastery of over-sized obstacle courses in remote locations; in which people pretend to invite you into their lives for a peek at what it’s “really like” to be a redneck or a fashion designer or a movie star, even though “real life” doesn’t involve a handful of producers helping you make day-to-day decisions.

How far will the trend go? How much are people willing to alter their lives via made-for-tv shortcuts in the hopes of getting the kind of life they’ve always dreamed of? We’ve gone a long way down that rabbit hole, but according to C.L. Gordon, there’s plenty of room left on the downward slide.

In Gordon’s short story “Attitude Adjustment,” we’re brought on the set of a show called “Radical Makeover: Attitude Adjustment.” Participants on the show have agreed to a new neurological procedure to help them deal with the issues that they don’t have the ability – or the patience – to deal with through more traditional means. Thus, after a quick operation, the inhibited recluse becomes an impulsive hellion, the over-giver becomes the embodiment of selfishness, and so on and so on. On a set, and in a world, like this, who can be trusted?

It’s a good idea, one that I wish Gordon had delved into a little deeper. This is a short piece of writing, and really only takes a broad swipe at the concepts the author introduces. This is the kind of subject matter in which the more you know about the characters getting these procedures, the more engaged and invested you’ll be. In the short amount of space Gordon gives this story, we don’t really get full characters, just quick sketches. There’s also a little twist at the end, something which I generally enjoy but felt a little out of place here.

To say much more is to give too much away, and I don’t want to to that. “Attitude Adjustment” is enjoyable enough, but it really opened up a lot of questions that I’d like to see explored more fully. Perhaps this is a subject the author will return to at another time. In the meantime, if you’ve got a tiny hole in your reading schedule and ninety-nine cents to kill, you could do worse.

The series is currently in the middle of its concluding arc, Locke & Key: Omega, and it’s killing me because I wait for the nice hardback collections to come out so I have no idea at this point what’s going on. And now comes along this news, which is great because it means we get just a little bit more Locke & Key than was originally planned, but awful because now we have to wait just a bit longer to see how everything plays out.

While adding an extra issue may scream “cash grab” to some, it’s clearly not the case here. Hill gives me the impression of being a guy who is all about the integrity of the story, first, last and always, so if this is the space they need to tell the ending, then I’m glad they are getting it.

Hill has also promised that, while this is the definitive end to the story of the Locke family, there are still more stories to tell involving the rambling Victorian mansion known as Keyhouse.

Can. Not. Wait.

The thing is, such gimmicks aren’t really necessary to capture the mood and the time period Wolf is trying to recreate. Go read any of the novels in Robert McCammon’s “Matthew Corbett” series and you’ll see that I’m right. Those books are set in roughly the same time period as Bloody Bones, but the only gimmicks McCammon resorts to are exacting research and impeccable storytelling.

So, for me, Wolf’s style here became a distraction, and as a result it took me a while to get into the story – which is shame, because it’s a pretty good story. Tristan Hart is, if not a wholly likeable character, a very compelling one. He’s curious, intelligent, and quite possibly completely barking mad. Much like a certain Doctor Frankenstein, Hart sometimes has a difficult time curbing his enthusiasm for new knowledge and new experiences. His greatest struggle is his attempt to understand his own overwhelming desires. He’s tortured but determined to simultaneously control and satisfy urges he can’t fully explain. It’s the kind of struggle that would be tough to witness in a character you’re rooting for, but Wolf isn’t completely successful in making Hart a sympathetic lead.

Hart’s struggle parallels the world he’s growing up in. It’s a time when new ideas are really starting to hold their own versus the old ideologies that have an iron grip on people in general and society as a whole. It’s heady stuff, and to pull off over 500 pages of it requires a light touch that Wolf hasn’t quite developed. There’s good material here, and Wolf is definitely a solid talent worth keeping an eye on, but he can’t seem to get out of his own way this time around.

My advice to Wolf would be to let the story take over. Stylistic touches can be nice, but rely on them too much and you end up derailing the very thing readers come for – the narrative. The plot. The STORY. In the case of The Tale of Raw Head & Bloody Bones, the story didn’t completely come off the tracks, but it easily could have been a much smoother, more satisfying ride.

In which we meet a man named Tim as he is hopping from consciousness to consciousness, inhabiting the bodies of random people in their final moments of life. The guilty lover with a rope around his neck; the sword swallower with a fatal tickle in his nose; the blind man with a faulty heart…he’s there for all of them, experiencing death with them – or, perhaps, for them. No one wants to die, but Tim is able to push through the experience multiple times – until he looks in a mirror during one of his “stops” and sees a familiar face staring back at him. Suddenly, Tim is no longer interested in riding the wave to the next death. Suddenly, he decides to take matters, and fate, into his own hands.

“Dying to Forget” is a compact, economical sucker punch of a story with a touching and surprisingly poignant ending. No matter how you may feel about editors who include their own work, or the work of a relative or loved one, in something they produce (Sunni Brock is editor Jason Brock’s wife), there’s no doubt that this particular tale is a snug fit in this collection.

More reviews from The Devil’s Coattails.

*A little background on Short Story Reviews, and why I’m doing them this way*

“The Man in the Ditch” is a tense and unsettling contribution from veteran genre author Lisa Tuttle. It starts with a simple yet disturbing image: a dead body by the side of the road. Or, at least, that’s what Linzi thinks she saw. She can’t convince her husband J.D. to turn around, but the idea of it – and the fact that she saw it so close to the land where the couple is about to build a new home – shakes Linzi to her core and throws a pall over the whole day.

Linzi’s refusal to let the idea go is just another wedge in what appears to be a somewhat shaky marriage. There’s a dark secret between Linzi and J.D., a single misguided act that resulted in a large gap in their marriage. It leaves Linzi on an island, and Tuttle takes a nearly sadistic glee in ratcheting up that sense of isolation throughout the story. In her marriage, in her new home out in the country, in her inability to conceive, and in her absolute belief that something dreadful is haunting her, Linzi is alone at every turn.

This is the kind of horror story that finds true fear in the details, the subtle moments, that quiet pause before the big explosion. It’s the kind of story that stays with you. It’s the kind of story that makes collections like this so damn good.

More reviews from A Book of Horrors

*A little background on Short Story Reviews, and why I’m doing them this way*