“Whistle for demons, boys, whistle for fiends, give a great tootling blow for beasties and ferocious fanged loomers of the dark.”
Ray Bradbury, The Halloween Tree (1972)
Friends, family, rogues, and ramblers: Just in case you require another distractive update from yours truly, here’s some news on a title that was recently released: Denizens of Darkness.
Cover art, “One of Memling’s Lost,” by James R. Powell
Edited by Herika R. Raymer, this paperback anthology is available directly through Sam’s Dot Publishing, ebook format at Smashwords, or Kindle edition at Amazon.com. Here’s the table of contents:
C. M. Saunders: “Treat Night”
Glynn Barrass: “Mythical Beings”
D. N. Calkins: “Paper Lanterns”
Christian Riley: “The Bones Of Hyrum Hill”
Paul Anderson: “Fences”
Sarah Gunn: “The Longest Night”
Kai Raine: “The Mirror Affair”
Bruce Memblatt: “Waitstaff”
Thomas Canfield: “Brethren Of The Epiphany”
Trevor Donaldson: “From Within”
Nicholas Conley: “The Augmenters”
Kristene Perron: “Lucky Me”
Edward Ahern: “Damned If You Do”
Clint Smith: “Like Father, Like . . . ”
Uel McClary: “The Girl In The Mist”
Glynn Barrass: “FleshWorld”
Echoing the sentiments of Dr. Steve Brule: “Check it out.”
####
And while you have some free time on your hands, check out the guidelines for All Hallow’s Read, “a Hallowe’en tradition,” explains the website’s author. “It’s simply that in the week of Hallowe’en, or on the night itself, you give someone a scary book.”
You can go out and buy a new book, or just slide a scary novel off your shelves at home. The FAQ page has some humorously loose rules. This year, Jessica received a copy of The Turn of the Screw, Jack picked up a hefty, dinosaur field guide, and Evie got her tiny hands on an adorable little tome called Where’s My Mummy?
Yes: The internet is rife with similar postings by more notable and influential writers than the one scribbling this particular messa
ge. Still, I’d like to share some favorite creepy reads (no repeats from previous postings, save for
Summer of Night) in honor of this season’s All Hallows Read.
Novels
Summer of Night (1991) by Dan Simmons. Anyone who is acquainted with or related to me is certainly sick of me
returning to this old chestnut, but it is quite simply one of the best books for boys ever written.
Heart-Shaped Box (2007) by Joe Hill. Does it matter that Hill is the son of Stephen King? Nope—Hill writes in a distinct voice and style. It’s a ghost story that’s satisfying on a supernatural level, and a serious tale that examines some absorbingly unsavory issues.
Horns (2009) by Joe Hill.
Dark Harvest (2006) by Norman Partridge. Think Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” cross-bred with Frankenst
ein and the movie Pumpkinhead.
Hell House (1971) by Richard Matheson. (Side note: Not for the kids.)
The Keep (1981) by F. Paul Wilson.
The List of 7 (1993) by Mark Frost
The Traveling Vampire Show (2000) by Richard Layman.
Short Stories and Collections
“Young Goodman Brown” and “The Birthmark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
The Shapes of Midnight by Joseph Payne Brennan.
Tales From Nightside by Charles L. Grant.
Poe’s Children: The New Horror: An Anthology by Peter Straub.
Clint Smith Fiction 