2014: My year in books

I have a room in my house devoted to books and comic books. Boxes and boxes of the damn things. They've been sitting there for a few months, ever since we moved from Maine to Oregon. Some day soon I'll start to buy some new bookcases, un-box the books and spread them around the house, but for now they'll just have to sit there where the movers dumped them this past August.

Hopefully it won't take too long to dig into those boxes, because I own hundreds (if not thousands) of books and comics that I haven't had a chance to read yet. I read an average of a book or two a week, but there's never enough time to truly catch up, is there? This year's move -- not to mention my excessive work schedule and the terrible health problems that plagued my family -- also served to slow down my reading.

I know you're waiting for the total, so here it is: I read 100 books this year. That's a lot, but it's quite a bit below the 119 books that I read in 2013 and the 115 that I read in 2012. It's also a much lower number of pages: I read more short books (primarily graphic novels) than anything else this year. That's an adaptation that I needed to make. With everything going on this past year, I just didn't have the luxury of focusing on longer, more involved novels as much as I wanted to.

I did read some damned good books, though. Top of the list, "Cabinet of Curiosities" by Guillermo del Toro. If you want to read something that will inspire you and kickstart your creativity, pick this one up.

Worst book? Well, I think the most disappointing one was "To Hell You Ride," a graphic novel by actor Lance Henriksen, whose extreme right-wing politics and conspiracy theories destroy a story that had a lot of potential.

Now, looking at books alone hardly captures the true depth of my reading in 2014. I read a LOT of articles, short stories, individual comic books and essays that could never be tallied in a way like this.

Looking ahead, I'm going to work hard to get back to reading novels this year. I have a few boxes of them ready and waiting for me, after all.

Back from the Borderlands

Well this is exciting. The long-out-of-print anthology BORDERLANDS 5, containing my short story "All Hands," is finally available again, this time in a handy-dandy Kindle edition. It's hard to believe that it's been 11 years since this book first came out, initially in a limited-edition hardcover and then as a mass-market paperback (called "From the Borderlands").

Unfortunately, the e-book edition doesn't include a handful of the original stories, most notably the exemplary "Stationary Bike" by Stephen King, but the majority of the tales are still there and they're all fantastic.

This is probably the best (and weirdest) short story I ever wrote. I hope you'll give it a look.

Lore Four

Hey, it's here! The fourth edition of LORE -- the anthology series for which I serve is contributing editor -- is now available. There are some great stories in this volume. I hope you'll check it out. (It should also be available through Amazon soon.)

New e-books galore

My previously published short stories continue to reappear as new e-books for Kindle. I'm having a lot of fun revisiting these old tales -- which I still think are pretty darned good. I'm also have a good time adding new essays to each story and designing the covers. My earliest book cover designs were, I'll admit, fairly weak, but the latest few are actually pretty good. 

Anyway, these stories are all just 99 cents each. Check 'em out through my Amazon Author page here. I hope you enjoy them!

"Before the Beginning" was actually the beginning

Another short story from my archive has been resurrected. This time around I went all the way back to the beginning and resurrected my very first published short story, "Before the Beginning." This caveman horror/fantasy story first saw print way back in 1994. It hasn't been seen since.

But now it's back in an affordable Kindle edition, complete with a new afterword talking about the story's history and putting it into context with my own history. Yes, I wrote a history for a story set during pre-history. How meta of me.

This story doesn't display any of the humor that I started bringing to my work just a few years later, but it does showcase some of the themes that have been present in my writing from day one. I think it's a pretty solid tale and I hope you'll give it a look.

Oldest Living American Serial Killer Tells All

The resurrection of my older horror and crime short stories continues. This week it's "Oldest Living American Serial Killer Tells All," which is now available for Kindle for just 99 cents.

I always liked this story, and it stayed in print for a lot of years in the Barnes & Noble anthology 100 Menacing Little Murder Stories. That book finally went where all such books go -- into the ether -- so now it's time to bring the tale back into print. In addition to the story itself, this e-edition includes an exclusive new afterword about the titular serial killer -- Rockwell, who's just as American as apple pie and the painter that shared his name.

By the way, I think the cover for this one came out pretty well. I wanted something striking, with bold but simple typography since the title is so long. I thought about playing around with splashes of blood or something more violent, but this is actually a fairly sedate crime story, so I think I struck the right balance.

I hope you'll give "Oldest Living American Serial Killer Tells All" a read. Who knows, I may even revisit Rockwell one of these days. I'm sure he's still got some mischief up his aged sleeves.

Strom Front resurrected

It's time to bring another of my old horror stories back into print! This time it's "Storm Front," one of my favorites. "Storm Front" is an old-school horror story, high on dread and mood and featuring a monster unlike just about anything else you've ever seen. The tale is now available for Kindle for just 99 cents. In addition to the story itself I have also included a brief bit of background about the story that ties it to the days gone by when it when it was first written.

I think I did a pretty good job designing the cover on this one. Again, it isn't the greatest cover in the history of books, but I think it does the trick.

Look for more stories soon. It's fun revisiting these old tales and I think they'll appeal to a new set of readers years after they were first published.

Would you sell your soul for a full head of hair?

Some of my short stories have been out of print for way too long. It's time to fix that. I'm going to start bringing a few of my older tales back into "print" as Kindle e-books. Here's the first: A Hell-Fire Cure for Baldness.

This new edition doesn't change a word of the original story (I think it stands up pretty well), but I did add a nice little piece about the origins of the story and its long and varied publication history.

This has long been one of my most popular short stories. I hope you'll check it out if it's new to you.

(PS -- I had fun designing that cover. It's not New York publishing-house quality, but I think it came out pretty well and I learned a few things in the process of creating it. You can't ask for more than that.)