Ebook of WAITING FOR OCTOBER

Back in 2007 Dark Arts Books released WAITING FOR OCTOBER, a fascinating cross between short story collection and anthology — in that it included four authors (Jeff Strand, Adam Pepper, Sarah Pinborough and myself), each of us offering 3-4 stories. Great news: WAITING FOR OCTOBER is now an ebook available for the Nook:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/waiting-for-october-jeff-strand/1008452994

…and the Kindle:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006PGK0TO/?tag=jeffreythomas-20

Displaying his usual commitment to graphic design, publisher John Evenson has labored over the formatting of this book to ensure that it’s a beautiful presentation.

Here is the table of contents:

JEFF STRAND:
Gramma’s Corpse
Bad Candy House
Here’s What Happened

ADAM PEPPER:
The Admirer
Buried A Man I Hated There
Old Maid
Syndrome

SARAH PINBOROUGH:
Express Delivery
The Fear
Crystal
Carla

JEFFREY THOMAS:
The Hosts
Adoration
Star est Control

Much recommended for the discerning reader of the weird…and there’s no need to wait til October to buy it.

Thinking About “Blood Society”

Reviewer David Marshall, at his website “Thinking About Books,” has just posted a review of my latest novel BLOOD SOCIETY, making much of the odyssey through time by the immortal lead character, Attilio Augusta. He concludes the review by saying:

“Blood Society is well worth seeking out as one of the more thoughtful and, therefore, best vampire-type books of 2011.”

You can read the full review at “Thinking About Books” (where Mr. Marshall also thinks about movies, TV, anime, etc.) here:

http://opionator.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/blood-society-by-jeffrey-thomas/

And the book can be ordered as paperback, hardcover or ebook here:

http://www.necropublications.com/blood-society.html

Interview with author JAMES ROBERT SMITH

James Robert Smith is a man of numerous impressive literary accomplishments. He has written comic scripts for Marvel Comics, Kitchen Sink, Spyderbabies Grafix, and others. He was co-editor of the  anthology Evermore, from Arkham House. His short stories have appeared in such anthologies as HORROR FOR THE HOLIDAY, THE DEVIL’S COATTAILS, THE BLEEDING EDGE, WHITLEY STRIEBER’S ALIENS, SINGERS OF STRANGE SONGS, RETURN TO LOVECRAFT COUNTRY, and CHILDREN OF CTHULHU. His first novel, THE FLOCK, was published in 2006 by Five Star, and a later edition from Tor-Forge appeared in 2010. His zombie novel THE LIVING END appeared in 2011 from Severed Press. His latest novel is HISSMELINA. Let’s ask James about all this and more.

Jeffrey Thomas: James, as an author of comic scripts, short stories, and novels, do you have a preference for one of these forms — is one more rewarding for you than the others?

James Robert Smith: Novels. No contest. After I started concentrating on novel-length manuscripts, it was years before I went back to the short story form. The past couple of years have been the first in a long time for creating short stories. Comic scripts have always been more of a purely for-the-money kind of work for me. There are things that you can only do with comics, but as I have to rely heavily on another creator’s interpretation of my ideas and that person’s own vision, it’s not my favorite form in which to work.

JET: What’s your writing process like? Do you have certain times in which you write, any idiosyncratic writerly rituals? Music or no music while you write?

JRS: I pretty much have to have peace and quiet and a certain amount of solitude when I write. I’d never be able to write in a shop window as Harlan Ellison so famously did. Also, I cannot write when music is being played. I’ve tried writing when playing music and it stops me in my tracks. Any kind of music just disturbs me. It doesn’t matter what kind—I have to shut it off. As for the time of day—I used to write mainly late at night, but now I write early in the evening because that’s when it’s most convenient to write. Unfortunately, my day job dictates when and where I can write.

JET: Tell us about your first novel, THE FLOCK. I love the premise but I want to hear you describe it!

JRS: THE FLOCK was a huge departure for me. It is neither fantasy nor horror but was instead inspired by a number of subjects close to my psyche: environmentalism and paleontology. Some years back it was theorized that the North American predatory ground bird, Titanis walleri had re-evolved arms in place of its rudimentary wings. This meant that it would have truly resembled the extinct theropods of tens of millions of years before. Around the same time there was an erroneous discovery that would have put the last of these creatures on the North American continent at the same time as the early Native Americans (roughly 15K years ago). These discoveries started swirling in my head and wouldn’t leave me alone. Thus, I ended up writing THE FLOCK, my first non-horror novel which proved to be my first novel sale.

JET: You sold the film rights for THE FLOCK; how did such an exciting development occur?

JRS: When the book came out and was a modest success in hardcover, I had a couple of inquiries for the movie rights. These were from East Coast sources and nothing ever really panned out. Then, one day on an old comic book artist’s website I accidentally insulted one of Don Murphy’s films (FROM HELL). I didn’t know the guy frequented the board and he was there and took offense to my criticism. So he went out and bought a copy of THE FLOCK, intending to read it and thereby authoritatively shred it in public. Instead, he loved the book so much that he teamed up with John (WEST WING) Wells and they optioned the novel through Warner Brothers.

JET: I hear there’s a sequel novel to THE FLOCK forthcoming?

JRS: I sold the sequel to THE FLOCK. It’s called THE CLAN and we rejoin most of the human characters from THE FLOCK in a new adventure. I’m not sure when Tor-Forge is going to release that one. They have the manuscript and I’m waiting for it to be scheduled.

JET: What other work do you have in the pipeline?

JRS: Next up should be FOUR FROM MANGROVE, a four-story fantasy collection set in my mythical nation of Mangrove, an Iron Age city-state. Over the years I’ve sold a number of my Mangrove stories to various publications and figured I’d collect them into one volume.

Tor-Forge has first refusal rights to my novel THE LOST CHILD, so I’m waiting to hear what they’re going to do. That one is a supernatural horror novel featuring a kind of werewolf. I’m also working on a Young Adult book my agent and I want to pitch as a trilogy—ISAAC’S QUEST.

JET: What’s your new novel, HISSMELINA, about?

JRS: HISSMELINA is a horror novel based on Lovecraftian themes. It’s not Mythos related, but does use some of the tropes we all pick up from reading HP Lovecraft in our youth. I wrote it partly because I got tired of reading horror novels with villains who were so evil that one had to laugh at them, and with heroes so good that they make you want to puke. So I created likable antagonists and mildly disreputable heroes. It’s my favorite novel and had the most near-misses at the major publishing houses of anything I wrote. It was past time for it to see print.

JET: How did you get into comic writing, and for Marvel no less?

JRS: I started writing for comics when I sold a couple of scripts to Steve Bissette for his infamous TABOO title. The TABOO stories led to other offers, including Marvel (CLIVE BARKER’S HELLRAISER) and New Comics, Fantaco, etc.

The comic book industry is a truly cut-throat and disreputable cesspool of a place and I haven’t worked in that format much in a long time. The last comics work I did was for Basement Comics when I did a CAVEWOMAN one-shot.

Currently, Mark Masztal and I are trying to piece together a comic book adaptation of my zombie novel, THE LIVING END.

JET: Who inspires you — not just writers, but creative people in general who fan your own creative flames?

JRS: Charles Bukowski, Robert Graves, Robert E Howard, Ernest Hemingway, Charles Portis, Barry Gifford, Boris and Arkady Strugatski, David Lynch, Peter Weir, Ridley Scott, Bertrand Russell, (comedian) David Cross…hell, I could sit here all day and write about inspirational figures.

JET: Do you have some concluding thoughts or any other projects you’d like to mention?

JRS: A lot of people ask me for advice since the movie deal was made public. I have to say that the best advice that I can give to anyone wanting to be a writer is the same that I kept hearing over the years: keep reading and don’t stop writing.

In addition to that, I like to tell younger writers not to be scared of rejection. If you can’t deal with rejection then you’re never going to make it as a writer or any other kind of creator.

JET: Thanks for the guest appearance, James!

JRS: Yer welcome! Thanks for having me on the blog!

Find JAMES ROBERT SMITH at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/James-Robert-Smith/e/B001JP7MG0/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_3?qid=1327214090&sr=1-3

…and visit him at his official web site: http://jamesrobertsmith.net/

01010011 01010101 01000010 01001010 01000101 01000011 01010100 00100000 00110001 00110001 00100000 01100101 01100010 01101111 01101111 01101011

01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000 00110001 00110101 00110000 00101101 01100011 01101111 01110000 01111001 00100000 01101100 01101001 01101101 01101001 01110100 01100101 01100100 00100000 01101000 01100001 01110010 01100100 01100011 01101111 01110110 01100101 01110010 00100000 01100101 01100100 01101001 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01101101 01111001 00100000 01110011 01100011 01100001 01110010 01111001 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110110 01100101 01101100 01101100 01100001 00100000 01010011 01010101 01000010 01001010 01000101 01000011 01010100 00100000 00110001 00110001 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110011 01101111 01101111 01101110 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 01110100 01101000 01100011 01101111 01101101 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01100110 01110010 01101111 01101101 00100000 01000100 01100101 01101100 01101001 01110010 01101001 01110101 01101101 00100000 01000010 01101111 01101111 01101011 01110011 00101100 00100000 01100010 01110101 01110100 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101101 01100101 01100001 01101110 01110100 01101001 01101101 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100011 01100001 01101110 00100000 01101111 01110010 01100100 01100101 01110010 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100101 01100010 01101111 01101111 01101011 00100000 01100101 01100100 01101001 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 00100000 01100100 01101001 01110010 01100101 01100011 01110100 01101100 01111001 00100000 01100110 01110010 01101111 01101101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110000 01110101 01100010 01101100 01101001 01110011 01101000 01100101 01110010 00100000 01110110 01101001 01100001 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110011 01101001 01110100 01100101 00100000 01000100 01100001 01110010 01101011 00100000 01000110 01110101 01110011 01100101 00101110

http://www.darkfuse.com/subject-11-by-jeffrey-thomas.html

01001000 01100101 01110010 01100101 00100111 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110000 01110010 01101111 01100100 01110101 01100011 01110100 00100000 01100100 01100101 01110011 01100011 01110010 01101001 01110000 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 00111010

***********

Welcome to the Subject 11 project.

We are currently seeking 10 individuals to participate in a research study. Participants shall receive a sum to be discussed during initial telephone interview. Interested parties should email us via our contact page, subject11.webs.com, providing their telephone number and a brief biography of approximately 100 words, describing themselves in terms of gender, age, race, and occupation if any.

The study will take place in a series of abandoned buildings rented for this purpose.

Note: subjects involved in this test may find themselves experiencing certain psychological distortions. They may experience lapses in memory regarding others and themselves. Subjects may even forget how long this test is supposed to go on for. And please disregard any additional people you may feel you’ve sighted in the complex, beyond those in the test group.

We thank you for your interest in our research.

***********

01001001 01110011 01101110 00100111 01110100 00100000 01101100 01101001 01100110 01100101 00100000 01110011 01110100 01110010 01100001 01101110 01100111 01100101 00111111

BEYOND THE DOOR tops reviewer’s Best of 2011 list

I was just now delighted to chance upon (after Googling myself for hours; there, I said it) this TOP 5 READS OF 2011 list over at the website SPECULATIVE FICTION JUNKIE, in which my novella BEYOND THE DOOR tops the (formidable) list. Did I say delighted? The aforementioned junkie says:

Beyond the Door by Jeffrey Thomas was my favorite book this year. While on the surface it may seem to be little more than a collection of excellent weird vignettes, this book is in fact both an unapologetic celebration of the weird as well as a testament to its potential as a humanizing force in our lives. For some reason, this book remains inexcusably underrated. I’m looking forward to exploring more of the work of Mr. Thomas next year.

I’m delighted!

BEYOND THE DOOR can be ordered in print or ebook form here:

http://www.darkfuse.com/beyond-the-door-by-jeffrey-thomas.html

A Top Ten List for BLOOD SOCIETY

A number of very positive reviews have come in for my supernatural gangster novel BLOOD SOCIETY. I’m pleased to see the reviewers focusing on and responding favorably to my various themes and the cast of characters. HORRORNEWS reviewer Anton Cancre said

“Overall, Blood Society messes with and blurs two mundane genres while making a clear social statement and coating the room red and chunky. Can’t see any reason to bitch there.”

Full review: http://horrornews.net/45844/book-review-blood-society-author-jeffery-thomas/

While George Wilhite at THE HORROR REVIEW observed:

“Thomas is more interested in fine character development and creating his own mythology than sticking to any tired old myths or versions of the undead. Anyone familiar with his Hades or Punktown stories and novels knows Thomas is a very capable monster maker.

Although Augusta “dies” in the novel’s Prologue that experience is only the beginning of decades-long journey in which he struggles with understanding his own nature as well as his complex relationships with humans and monsters he meets along the way”

http://www.horrorreview.com/2011/gwbloodsociety2011.html

And at HORRORTALK, reviewer Gabino Iglesias said:

“While the main story packs as much action, betrayal, tension, sex, drama and bullets as any good mafia movie, Thomas’ writing truly shines in the underlying narrative and the way he effortlessly transitions between the real world and that unknown world of shadows creatures inhabit when their physical presence is hidden behind the veneer of a human body. Furthermore, Thomas steers clear of all known vampire clichés and finds ways for his characters to deal intelligently with their thirst for blood while contemplating their situation with an almost philosophical slant.”

http://www.horrortalk.com/book-reviews/1933-blood-society-book-review.html

The novel also made this reviewer’s Top Ten list for 2011:

http://www.horrortalk.com/features/1944-gabinos-top-ten-horror-books-of-2011.html

“When you put together a demonic type of vampire and the great Al Capone, you can either get a messy book or an interesting, captivating and truly epic story like the one told in Blood Society. A horror book packed with action that never loses track of the opportunity it creates to explore humanity, death and love.”

Very rewarding insights into what I was after with the novel. I am pleased!

BLOOD SOCIETY can be found in hardcover, paperback and ebook formats on sites like Amazon, or can be ordered through the publisher (Necro Publications) here:

http://necropublications.com/blood-society.html

So 2011 ends with a bang, and 2012 begins with promise — I hope for all of you!

It’s pure Anarchy! FREE books, including “Monstrocity”!

Anarchy Books, which recently released an ebook edition of my Bram Stoker-nominated novel MONSTROCITY, has an exciting limited time free books promotion via Amazon. Here’s the press release:

***** PRESS RELEASE *****

Anarchy Books – FREE BOOK PROMOTION – 29.12.11

 

That’s right, Anarchy Books have a very special New Year gift for all you lucky shiny new Kindle owners.

 

During the next 4/5 days over the New Year period, a selection of Anarchy Books titles will be offered completely FREE! So if you fancy any of the following novels, get yo ass over to Amazon and stock up your Kindle with Anarchy for the New Year….

 

Participating titles:

 

GIG (Mik and Kim) by James Lovegrove

Monstrocity by Jeffrey Thomas

New York Nights by Eric Brown

Rain Dogs by Gary McMahon

SIM by Andy Remic

Serial Killers Incorporated by Andy Remic

The Black Seas of Infinity by Dan Henk

The Office of Lost and Found by Vincent Holland-Keen

 

All free!

Have a HAPPY ANARCHY NEW YEAR!!

www.anarchy-books.com

Ebooks of BLOOD SOCIETY and PUNKTOWN: SHADES OF GREY

NECRO PUBLICATIONS recently announced the following:

“Jeffrey Thomas’s new book BLOOD SOCIETY is now available as an eBook from Smashwords, Amazon Kindle Store and the B&N PubIt! site. SALEM’S LOT meets THE GODFATHER in this epic tale of an undead mafioso and his century-long journey from Sicily to the hard streets of 1920s Chicago and 1990s Boston — where he finally meets creatures much like himself who think it’s time to take over his crime empire, which leads to an all-out war set in a world of shadows where the rules are very, very different.”

*****

BLOOD SOCIETY an ebook by JEFFREY THOMAS

*****

Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/102766

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0064APN34/?tag=jeffreythomas-20

“Closed Circuit” by Robert Thomas

(My father Robert Thomas drew this haunting abstract figure. No, it's not a gray alien. I feel it conveys a lot of suffering.)

My father ROBERT THOMAS passed away at the age of 74, in November 1999. He was a small man, a teenager so eager to fight for his country that he ate like a fiend to put on weight so that he wouldn’t be turned away. He was a sailor who served on the USS Augusta during the Normandy Invasion. In North Africa, while on guard duty he killed an enemy with a Thompson submachine gun after the man had cut the throat of another sailor on patrol. He was a commercial artist, and a landscape artist. Late in life, his poetry was published in local newspapers, and he especially loved this time of year when he might write a special poem to commemorate Veterans Day. He told me of a short story idea he had, involving a place called Purgatory Chasm here in Massachusetts, but he never wrote it. He did, however, complete a single short story.

It was sometime in the late 1960s, I should think. My family had discussed emulating that night at Byron’s Villa Diodati, all of us composing a scary story. I think I finished mine, something I believe I called “Things With Claws.” My father completed his, too…

As an adult man, some time after my father’s death, I was in the process of moving and needed to rid myself of a lot of books, planning on giving them to the Salvation Army. Something made me crack open an old hardcover on Hollywood that I was just about to add to the box. Tucked inside were two brittle, yellowed onion skin sheets. It was my father’s long-lost horror story, “Closed Circuit.”

Tonight, I scanned these pages and created a text file from them. I have only corrected two misspellings; I haven’t adjusted the punctuation though there were spots where I wanted to. My Dad made one correction with pen to the manuscript, but he was uncertain about it — there was a question mark beside it — so I disregarded the proposed correction; it worked better without it, in any case. I’m not sure how many drafts of this typewritten story he might have written to arrive at this…or if it was the only version.

I will paste the story for you below. Is it Earth-shattering in its uniqueness? No. It has a classic “Twilight Zone” feel. It’s well written, though, and makes me wish my father had written more stories. No wonder he was so proud of my brother Scott and I for our published short stories. I wish he had lived long enough to see our books.

Here it is. It’s been waiting a long time to find its audience.

*****

Closed Circuit

Robert Thomas

Hugo didn’t wake up with a start, but emerged from a sleep between reverie and reality, aware almost immediately of what this particular day was, and what it had in store for him.

This last week, he had allowed himself to be used as the main subject of their experiments, which were after all, quite harmless. As a matter of fact, except for the annoyance of having a few irksome wires taped about his body, his actions although limited were quite normal. Besides, the compensation he was to receive, far overwhelmed these minor discomforts, and his family would enjoy this much needed assistance, especially now.

All during the week, every seemingly unconscious twitch or the slightest muscular movement was converted from physical energy to electrical energy, and recorded on tape, such as a television program might be. This was the whole point of this experiment.

Today was going to be “the day”. The day of days, and Hugo was going to be the star of stars. Today his mind was going to be televised. His every thought, his every mental emotion, his impulses, his most subconscious, deepest personal feelings were to be exposed through the impersonal medium of a picture tube, from which he was to be further exposed to the probing eyes of unemotional calculating science in the
form of man.

Hugo felt no extreme discomfort, even when the other type of electrodes as well, were attached to his body, except he thought they need not to have been so tight, especially the main one attached to his head.

Now, Hugo was most self-conscious of his thoughts, for he certainly didn’t want to think of anything which might cause embarrassment, so he naturally wanted to think as normal and rational thoughts as possible under the circumstances. He especially didn’t want to expose his terrible fear. Even though his selected audience was viewing him from a closed cir­cuit television set, and was limited only to those interested in the scientific aspects of the experiment, Hugo still felt as though the whole world were looking into his mind, and watch­ing his most intimate thoughts.

Suddenly Hugo was taken out of his role as a subconscious actor. He was not aware of how or when he was free of the restrictions caused by the annoying apparatus, but just began to enjoy the freedom with which he was suddenly blessed.

The fears and terrors were gone, no more wires to hinder him, nothing to hold him back, he was free, completely free to think as he pleased, do as he pleased.

Still, questions formed in this suddenness. Doubts of his family’s welfare — the worries and problems they faced. Was it really then, good luck that set him free?

Hugo felt, rather than saw, the blinding flash in that exploding moment of freedom.

If there were to be an answer to his questions, they were not to be viewed on a television screen. At the exact scheduled time on this special day, an authoritative unemotional voice pronounced Hugo legally dead.

The program was over, the scientists disconnected their wires, and at the same time, so did the executioner.

(The original manuscript, page 1.)

(The original manuscript, page 2.)

On a final note. On the one-year anniversary of my father’s death, I was sitting at my computer with my son Colin standing beside me. Colin was only eight, and he’s autistic, and no one had told him what this date signified. Suddenly he looked past me, into a dark bedroom beside us, and said in a surprised tone, “Grampa!” I whirled and looked into the room…but saw nothing.

Maybe my Dad knows about my books, after all.

Enter the BLOOD SOCIETY

Necro Publications — who have previously released (via their Bedlam Press imprint) my novel LETTERS FROM HADES and collection (with brother Scott Thomas) PUNKTOWN: SHADES OF GREY — today received copies of the hardcover edition of my novel BLOOD SOCIETY…ready to ship! And what is BLOOD SOCIETY? Well, I’ll let the back cover material speak for itself:

On the holiday Sicilians call Giorno dei Morti — “The Day of the Dead” — Attilio Augusta meets a beautiful woman while paying his respects in a crypt. She is the same woman he once met in that crypt as a young boy. She hasn’t aged a day.