Tag Archives: horror

Want To Enjoy A Sacred, Raunchy Holiday Season?

‘Tis the season to remind folks of a holiday staple around the Byrdcave, the Santa books of Robert Devereaux. These incredible works of fantasy are both moving and filthy, sacred and profane, and guaranteed to awaken parts of your brain you might not even be aware of.

The first, Santa Steps Out, has been out of print lo these many years, but Devereaux recently regained the rights and has made it available as a Kindle download at Amazon. The second, Santa Claus Conquers the Homophobes, is available in paperback and Kindle format.

I reviewed both here, and you can read the entries at:

Santa Steps Out

Santa Claus Conquers the Homophobes

An evil elf also recently told me there’s a third Santa book on the way, and a likely hardcopy set of all three by next Christmas.

Kicking Amphibian Butt: One Of My Favorite Doc Wilde Reviews

A Great Christmas Gift! Buy Now!

One of the most thorough and thoughtful reviews of my book, Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom, came from writer/librarian Werner A. Lind, who posted it on Goodreads around the time the Pulp Magazine Authors and Literature Fans group discussed the book.

The review is below, but first a couple of points…

First, you may note there’s a discrepancy between the 4 star rating shown above the review and Werner’s statement grading it with three stars in the initial paragraph. Werner explained in a comment during the group discussion:

I hope you noticed that I later added a comment to say that honestly, on reflection, I’d give it four stars based on my own enjoyment of it, not just that of a hypothetical younger reader. (Sometimes it gets tiring to always have to wear the mantle of a sober academic critic. :-)) And I want you to know that once Doc Wilde and the Mad Skull is published, it’s definitely going on my to-read shelf!

The other thing is that he, like quite a few others I think, found the kids’ ability to use echolocation to navigate darkness a bit too over-the-top and unrealistic. The truth is, human echolocation is real, and it’s fascinating. Look it up on Wikipedia.

And now, take it away, Werner… Continue reading →

Hey There, Cthulhu

A song to get you in the Saturday Night With Cthulhu mood…
(Thanks to horror-meister Ray Garton for sharing this)

A Poem, Dark and Wild

I want to share with you an incredible poem by novelist/poet Francesca Lia Block, who I just met but think, somehow, I’ve always known.

In this poem, she builds a dark fairy story explicitly on the framework of Vladimir Propp’s folk tale morphology with powerful, exquisite results.

Here’s a taste, click here for the whole thing.

ABSENTATION: How could I have left them? The boy with his small, fierce body. The girl with lupine eyes. They stood weeping in the doorway between the light house and the night. Their warmth still lingered on my cold hands even after I was gone.

INTERDICTION: “Don’t go!” they wailed. “Don’t go with him.” They ran to the window and watched me get into the long black car. I saw their faces shining there, like little lights. Like stars reflected in the dark pool of the glass. He was hunched over the wheel and wore a ruffled shirt. His eyes were an interdiction, too but I did not recognize.

VIOLATION of INTERDICTION: He carried me away into the night. Trees bloomed in the fluorescence and strange electronic birds sang. He picked a flower and put it behind my ear and read me poetry. I swooned. It did not take much.

RECONNAISSANCE: We went to find my mother in a weird old restaurant that smelled of meat. She was sitting fragile in a huge red booth like a piece of garnish. She, too, was tricked by him. She took me aside and said, No other man has deserved you yet, my darling.

DELIVERY: Where is the cancer? he asked her. She told him and he laid his hands on her as if he were a healer. We gasped with gratitude and relief. How little we knew him…

“The Show Is Over” by Nora Keyes

Nora Keyes, gettin’ her serious creep on.

Happy Halloween!

Timwolf’s Guide to Halloween

For the interested, here are some posts from back in my blog somewheres related to Halloweeny goodness…

5 Classic Horror Flicks to Goose Your Bumps

…for those who might like to watch something scary and good, I figured I’d throw you a few bones. Collect ‘em all and you can build a skeleton.

These are just five classics, not my all time favorites or anything with that much thought behind it, not in any particular order. All of them are first rate.

5 New Classic Horror Flicks You Might Have Missed

Some more contemporary works that many people haven’t seen, and everybody who loves a good scare needs to.

Saturday Night With Cthulhu

Sebastian’s Voodoo (A Great Short Film)

A wonderful short animated film by UCLA student Joaquin Baldwin. It’s visually amazing, and the story is very moving.

Get DOC WILDE & THE FROGS OF DOOM For Cheap!

I’m not sure why, but Amazon currently has some marked down copies of my pulp adventure novel, Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom, selling for just $6.23.

Buy Now!

This is a first edition hardback (the paperback is due out next year), and the cover price is $15.99. Amazon is also offering it at a discounted $12.47.

Considering that the hardback usually runs $11 to $16, and the paperback when it finally comes out will likely be a minimum of $8, this is a great opportunity to get the book for cheap.

For the uninitiated, Doc Wilde is my modern take on the great old adventure tales featuring characters like Indiana Jones, The Shadow, the Spider, and most importantly Doc Savage, with strong currents of H.P. Lovecraft’s eldritch horror swirled in.

It is published as a book for young teen readers, but like something like Raiders of the Lost Ark or The Incredibles, is intended for both young and old.

Frogs of Doom is the first in a series; next will be Doc Wilde and The Mad Skull.

You can check out some reviews at http://www.docwilde.com/reviews/.

SKULLDUGGERY (A Free, Serialized Novel by Tim Byrd)

Drogarth.

The name alone conjures dark images of spilling blood, of blackest magiks, of lawlessness and chaos. Throughout the kingdom children hear stories of this evil city and are told they must never go there — and they wish with all their hearts that one day they will. For children are the custodians of wishes, of dreams; they know in their hearts, in their souls, that only in the darkest of pits can the brightest adventures be found…

Years and years ago, when I had a bit more spring in my step and fewer callouses on my heart, I got out of a misguided stint in the U.S. Army and plopped down at a cheap portable typewriter to begin living the life I always intended to live, that of a dashing and prolific novelist.

I was living on savings, shacking up in Kassel, West Germany (there was still an East Germany then) with a wonderful girlfriend named Rike (whom I’d met the very day I’d arrived at my Army post), who was deep in her own university studies while I took the time to write.

It was a happy year. It was the most productive year of my life, too.

First, I wrote a short fantasy adventure novel called The Road to Adventure. It was sort of stock fantasy — knights and elves and hot pagan priestesses — mixed with sheer swashbuckling and quite a bit of eldritch horror. Took me just over a month to write, and I got it in the mail and started the next project.

The Road to Adventure damn near got published too. A senior editor at one of the big science fiction/fantasy publishers took a liking to it and went to bat for it with the editorial board. See, getting a book published isn’t just a matter of getting a “yes,” it’s a matter of getting a series of “yeses,” and if you get a “no” in that series, you’re screwed. According to the editor, I had the majority of folks wanting the book, but got two key noes; I was screwed. But hey, pretty good for the first shot.

Of course, that resolution took a while, during which I wrote my second book. This took a lot longer than a month. Whereas I’d written Road with a detailed outline, I started this one with a setting, a couple of character ideas, and the notion that I was gonna write a “hardboiled fantasy,” mixing standard sword and sorcery tropes with gritty crime fiction. And I had the title:

Skullduggery. A Tale of Thieves. Continue reading →

Solomon Kane Trailer

Among the great pulp heroes created by Robert E. Howard, author of the only true Conan tales, was puritan swordsman against darkness Solomon Kane.

The complete tales are currently available in this beautiful Del Rey book:

solomon

Click to Order

For the roleplaying games fans among you, one of the absolute greatest RPGs in years is this Savage Worlds gamebook by Shane Hensley:

Click to Order

Click to Order

And this trailer for the upcoming cinematic adaptation looks very promising.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

It takes a LOT to creep me out, but…

…this makes my skin crawl. He was creepy enough when he was alive.

Michael Jackson will live on as a ‘plastinated’ creature preserved by German doctor Gunther von Hagens.

Von Hagens has caused controversy with everyone from the Pope to the chief rabbi in Israel with his practice of embalming corpses with preserving polyurethane.

Yesterday, he declared: ‘An agreement is in place to plastinate the King of Pop.’…

Von Hagens said that he spoke with representatives of the Jackson family ‘many months ago’ and it was agreed that his body will be plastinated and placed next to Bubbles, his late pet monkey who was plastinated a number of years ago and is exhibited at The Body Worlds & Mirror Of Time exhibition at the O2 Centre in London.

Von Hagens also confirmed it was one of Michael’s final requests to be reunited with Bubbles. [Source: The Daily Mail]

Ew.

INSOMNIA by Stephen King (capsule review)

Insomnia Insomnia by Stephen King

My review


rating: 3 of 5 stars
Far from King’s best. It was an engaging enough story, with some creative (if cartoonish) elements, but if ever there was a book crying out for the Reader’s Digest Condensed Book treatment (which is something I generally despise), it was this one. Nearly 800 pages used to tell a story that really should have been told in 300-400 at most. Way too much incidental detail, too much authorial wool-gathering.

View all my reviews.

Sebastian’s Voodoo (A Great Short Film)

Here is a wonderful short animated film by UCLA student Joaquin Baldwin. It’s visually amazing, and the story is very moving.

Let The Right Subs In, aka Power to the People

lettherightonein
Last week, I watched the Swedish independent horror film Let The Right One In. It’s an unusually smart little film, particularly for the horror genre these days, and it’s probably the best vampire film I’ve seen since Guillermo del Toro’s Cronos (1993). Or maybe Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark (1987). Its approach to horror is to come at us through character rather than through gore or trickery (which is not to say it doesn’t have some of those too), and in ways it reminds me of the works of Val Lewton in the 1940s.

I recommend it highly. But that’s not the point of this entry.

No, the point of it is, turns out I was fortunate to see the movie on the original Swedish screener DVD. The US release of the film on DVD/Blu-Ray last week turns out to have been something even more scary than the movie itself: a dumbed down version of the movie itself. Continue reading →

Kirkus LOVES the Wildes!!!

Order Now!

Order Now!

I just received my first HUGE review for Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom, from Kirkus Reviews (Wikipedia: “Kirkus has long been a respected, authoritative pre-publication review source within the literary and film industries”). And it’s, quite frankly, a rave:

When their scientist grandfather disappears again, 12-year-old Brian, his ten-year-old sister, Wren, and their world-renowned father, Dr. Spartacus Wilde, are off on an adventure to kick off Byrd’s debut novel and the first volume in a new series. The high-tech Indiana Jones-type tale takes the adventurers to the uncharted South American jungles of Hidalgo to find Grandpa Wilde, who had researched dark matter and the possibility of traveling to other universes. The problem is that Frogon, a dark god from another universe, wants to take over ours. Besides finding Grandpa, the Wildes must face a glut of frogs-spy frogs, man-frogs, saber-toothed frogs and the dark elder god frog-and save the universe.

Written in fast-paced, intelligent prose laced with humor and literary allusions ranging from Dante to Dr. Seuss, the story has all of the fun of old-fashioned pulp adventures. A tale “terrifying and dark, of indescribable horrors and eldritch mysteries,” this is sure to be Wilde-ly popular, and readers will anxiously await future installments.

So far, everybody likes it. The Wildes are off to a good start.

Just a reminder: the book comes out May 14th, but can be ordered already at this link. If you plan on getting it, please pre-order, because a book’s initial sales are crucially important in building its success.

Saturday Night With Cthulhu

Do you know Cthulhu?

If you knew Cthulhu as we know Cthulhu, oh, oh, oh what a god…

cthulhuI’ve always loved scary stories. One of the few positive memories I have from my childhood was staying up with my father and watching classic Universal monster movies in a rocking chair. I loved scary comics like Creepy and Eerie and monster comics like Marvel’s Werewolf By Night (I remember, when I was about 9 or so, scrambling around the desolation of our suburban neighborhood by moonlight in a torn shirt pretending I was the werewolf). I could quote Edgar Allen Poe, and read all the horror I could get hands on, from Dracula to “The Monkey’s Paw” to Something Wicked This Way Comes. Well, I read most things I could get my hands on. But horror was among my favorites. Continue reading →

The Dark Muse of Karl Edward Wagner

I’ve written about my old friend Karl Edward Wagner before. Back in the day, I caroused through various conventions with the brilliant red-bearded wildman, having a hell of a great time.

karl

In my youthful naiveté, I didn’t realize the booze that was fueling his fun was symptomatic of a deep self-destructive streak which would lead to his death at the age of 49. Continue reading →

Trust me, I’m a psychopath!

jekyll

I’m phasing out Comcast Cable (crappy HD, shitty DVR that’s years behind Tivo in reliability and functionality, and execrable customer service), which is unfortunately the only TV option provided by my apartment management, and one of the services that is replacing it is a renewed subscription to Netflix, because of its new streaming features. For $10 a month I can have one disk out at a time (and that disk will be Blu-Ray if the flick is available in that format) and unlimited real-time streaming of the movies they have available, of which there’s a surprising abundance (I have over three hundred listings in my personal “Watch Instantly” queue).

It’s really great, as I can choose something on the spot to give a try, without worrying about it tying up my physical rental for a few days of mailing back and forth, and if that choice sucks, I just stop watching and move on to something else. It also has allowed me to find some really great stuff I hadn’t been aware of, the latest being the BBC miniseries Jekyll.

Jekyll is FUN. Continue reading →

Gaiman Wins The Newbery

A hearty congratulations to Neil Gaiman who just won the Newbery Award for The Graveyard Book, the book I blogged about so lovingly not long ago.

Neil Gaiman: What I Look Like The Day After I Win The Newbery

And yeah, I’m up at 4:14 am, what about it? I been up for hours, beeyotch.

I need sleep. Anybody have any?

It Takes a Graveyard to Raise a Child

There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.

graveyard

So begins The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman’s latest dark wonder, in which he kind of retells Kipling’s Jungle Book, but has the orphaned boy raised not in a jungle by wild things, but in a cemetery by things that go bump in the night.

It works. Gaiman is a master, and this book is pure Gaiman, spooky and clever and wry, written with a simple grace that belies its artful complexity. It’s one of those books that’s like drinking eggnog; it’s so good, you gulp it down, finishing it fast then immediately wishing you had more. (Plus, Gaiman’s book has no calories, so it won’t add to your gut).

The Graveyard Book is a fine book, and a great read for anyone over ten.

Interested readers should also check out Gaiman’s blog at http://journal.neilgaiman.com.