(October, the month of Halloween, conjures one name in our household: Dracula! This is the first of a series of posts on various aspects of Dracula and vampires in general. I’ll be giving away a two-pack of my own vampire novels Blood Groove and The Girls with Games of Blood to one lucky commenter per post, so comment early, comment often!) Recently I came … Read More
Announcing Firefly Witch Volume 3: Back Atcha
Available on Kindle as of right now, the third collection of Firefly Witch tales, Back Atcha. In these three new short stories, the darkest adventures yet for the Firefly Witch, Tanna and Ry encounter their most vicious, diabolical and dangerous foes. One is a redneck who intends to sell his girlfriend to the devil, another is a serial killer with … Read More
George Lucas and Elvis: Echoes from 1977
Thirty-five years ago, two things that fundamental changed my life happened in the same summer. In May, Star Wars was released. In August, Elvis Presley died. The arrival of Star Wars turned the thing that everyone in my small town mocked, that had gotten me teased and beaten up, into the hippest thing in the world. Spaceships, aliens and robots … Read More
Of eddies, witches and titles
It’s no secret that the Eddie LaCrosse novels owe as much to mystery as they do fantasy, especially the hardboiled pulps and films noir of the 30s and 40s. So when I wrote Wake of the Bloody Angel, I knew its title would have to be a play on a title from the mystery genre, much as Burn Me Deadly … Read More
Interview: Holly McDowell
I met Holly McDowell at one convention, and heard her read at another. Her novel, King Solomon’s Wives, is a serial e-book produced by Colliquy, with an intriguing premise. The publisher describes it this way: The two thousand descendants of King Solomon’s ancient harem have the ultimate power of seduction: Their very touch is as addictive as any drug. But that … Read More
The face of the Firefly Witch
When a writer creates a character, he or she generally has a very clear image in his or her mind’s eye. Sometimes it can be of a well-known, specific actor: it’s no secret that Alien-era Tom Skerritt inspired Eddie LaCrosse, hero of my latest novel Wake of the Bloody Angel. Conversely, there is no actress who completely matches my idea of … Read More
The Return of the Firefly Witch
I sold my first short story in 1996. It appeared in a defunct horror zine called Gaslight: Tales of the Unsane. It introduced Tanita “Tanna” Tully, a character I subsequently wrote about for nearly ten years. She was: a) blind, but could see in the presence of fireflies, b) a parapsychologist, and c) a Wiccan high priestess known as Lady … Read More
Interview: Jefferson Brassfield, screenwriter of Westender
I took a chance on the 2003 movie Westender, based on the DVD cover image to the left. I love fantasy films, and this one seemed unusually somber and even (dare I hope?) thoughtful, instead of the usually mayhem and scantily-clad girls (not that there’s anything wrong with that). It turned out to be just that: a meditation on redemption, shot in … Read More
Film review: “Dawn of the Dragonslayer”
First, a digression: the SyFy Channel, much like MTV before it, has done considerable damage to the very thing it first embraced. Now the phrase, “A SyFy Original Movie” elicits the same sort of laughter as Mystery Science Theatre 3000, and for the same reason: you hear it and you know you’re in for a bad movie. And SyFy is … Read More
Saved by Darkness
In 1978, I was as hardcore a geek/nerd/dweeb as a boy could be. Star Wars had come upon the world, legitimizing those of us who read books with spaceships and monsters on the covers (and got beaten up by our cousins for it, but that’s another blog post). Starlog magazine was hot. TV had The Six Million Dollar Man, The … Read More