Bet that stings: The Bad Moon Books edition of Joe McKinney's The Red Empire.

Now he’s unleashing fire ants on them.

A new trade paperback edition of McKinney’s The Red Empire — a novella about inch-long, super-intelligent fire ants [Read it all...]]]>

Bet that stings: The Bad Moon Books edition of Joe McKinney's The Red Empire.

Now he’s unleashing fire ants on them.

A new trade paperback edition of McKinney’s The Red Empire — a novella about inch-long, super-intelligent fire ants loosed on an unsuspecting South Texas — will hit the shelves January 2012 from fledgling publisher Redrum Horror.

The book also will include seven McKinney short stories, including two specifically penned for this edition. But don’t expect any of the shambling undead creatures McKinney built the early part of his career on.

“There won’t be any zombies, so folks are going to get a taste of my other interests in the horror genre,” he says. “I’m doing this new version of the book because I was eager to branch out to other kinds of horror. Readers will find stories merging science fiction and horror, Lovecraftian horror and of course some psychological horror.”

The limited first edition of The Red Empire came out earlier this year from Bad Moon Books. Most, if not all, of those 1,000 books have sold out, McKinney adds.

And just in case you just can’t get enough of Joe, head on over to author Kealan Patrick Burke’s blog, where he does a guest shot writing about the virtues of creepy old buildings.

Joe McKinney, author of the newly released Flesh Eaters, is one of the authors appearing Saturday at the La Cantera Barnes & Noble.

This is the 46th in my series of Forgotten Books.

Joe McKinney is a San Antonio policeman. He is also a damn fine horror writer. He is certainly trying to become King of the Zombie writers with his four novel DEAD WORLD series and appearances in three anthologies [Read it all...]]]> Quarantined by Joe McKinney, 2009, Lachesis Publishing

This is the 46th in my series of Forgotten Books.

Joe McKinney is a San Antonio policeman. He is also a damn fine horror writer. He is certainly trying to become King of the Zombie writers with his four novel DEAD WORLD series and appearances in three anthologies of zombie stories (including DEAD SET which he co-edited).

Today’s novel QUARANTINED is not a zombie novel. It’s scarier than that. This is about a biologic plague that hits San Antonio in the form of the H2N2 flu, deadlier than any other strain recorded. People start dying left and right and before you can say “Urban Flight” the government has a giant wall around the city and people who try to leave are shot first and questioned later.

The novel is also a murder mystery of sorts. Among McKinney’s previous duties with the SAPD, he was a homicide detective. In QUARANTINED, Detective Lily Harris and her partner Reginald Dempsey (Chunk) are on duty verifying the dead being placed in a mass grave when they notice a pretty woman who does not show flu signs. They examine her and even though she has a morgue tag on her toe, she has not been examined. She has been shot. Suddenly they have a murder on their hands. Reviews soon disclose the victim to be Dr. Emma Bradley from the World Health Organization who is researching the causes of the flu plague.

The WHO people think the San Antonio doctors are morons and do not hide their disdain. They also believe that Dr. Bradley was killed by a policeman which does not endear them to Lily and Chunk and vice versa.

In addition to police work, Lily has to balance a family life with her husband Billy and her daughter Connie who has a 6th birthday coming soon. Because of the quarantine, food is dropped in on a regular basis and certain luxuries (like chocolate) are only available on the black market.

Trying to maintain a healthy life balance while conducting a murder investigation is not easy. But when the food shipments start getting shorted and the riots start, life n San Antonio becomes a real hell.

The police work sounds authentic (as it should). The city is recognizable as San Antonio. The horror is as real as next week’s news. And the writing is fast paced and good. It is not a wonder that this was a nominee for Best Novel from the Horror Writers Association. It did not win, but it deserved to be there. McKinney is up for Best Novel again this year and for a short fiction award. The Horror Writers know cream when they see it. Check out his work now and say you knew him when.

As an aside to this, Joe McKinney is one of the organizers of the World Horror Convention which will be held in Austin from April 28 to May 1. That is like next week, folks. And I believe he will have a new novel out for the show. Get a day pass and come see him there. I’ll be there too so come by sand see me, too.

Series organizer Patti Abbott hosts more Friday Forgotten Book reviews at her own blog, and posts a complete list of participating blogs.

Joe McKinney's latest features a rather sultry looking cover zombie.

Flesh Eaters (Pinnacle), the third in his four-book zombie series, recently hit the shelves, and his story “The Day the Music Died” graces the new zombie anthology Holiday [Read it all...]]]>

Joe McKinney's latest features a rather sultry looking cover zombie.

Flesh Eaters (Pinnacle), the third in his four-book zombie series, recently hit the shelves, and his story “The Day the Music Died” graces the new zombie anthology Holiday of the Dead.

Flesh Eaters follows emergency worker Eleanor Norton as she and her team conduct dangerous salvage work in the streets of Houston, flooded with both plague-filled waters and ravenous zombies. Brian Keene, perhaps the current dean of zombie fiction, praised the book as “mercilessly fast-paced and genuinely scary.”

Apocalypse of the Dead, the previous book in McKinney’s series, came out last fall and now is in the running for a Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Novel.

We last did a Q&A with Joe McKinney back in 2009, after he’d just released his second novel, Quarantined. Since then, he’s co-edited the zombie anthology Dead Set, put out two more novels — the zombie epic Apocalypse of the Dead and hard-boiled crime tale Dodging Bullets [Read it all...]]]>

Riding High: Prolific horror author Joe McKinney.

We last did a Q&A with Joe McKinney back in 2009, after he’d just released his second novel, Quarantined. Since then, he’s co-edited the zombie anthology Dead Set, put out two more novels — the zombie epic Apocalypse of the Dead and hard-boiled crime tale Dodging Bullets — and this week picked up a second Stoker Award nomination (for Apocalypse).

Given McKinney’s rising stock on the horror scene, we figured it was time to sit down with him once again. McKinney, who works for the San Antonio Police Department, was more than happy to discuss the origins of his new crime novel, the future of zombie horror and his spate of upcoming projects.

How does it feel to be nominated for a Stoker Award alongside horror heavyweights like Peter Straub and Joe Hill?

A little intimidating. Peter Straub is one of the authors I grew up reading. Koko, Ghost Story, Shadowland…for me, reading those novels was like discovering gold. It’s hard to overstate the importance of great writing encountered early in one’s life. All I can say is I’m the richer for having encountered him. And though Joe Hill is a relative newcomer on the scene, he shows the same promise as the early Straub. These are both writers that my friends and I have discussed over long drunken nights. Suddenly finding oneself lumped among them, well, that’s flattering, and frightening. I guess I feel like the ugly stepsister at the gala ball.

Although you don’t write about zombies exclusively, you certainly made your name as a zombie writer. Are there signs the zombie phenomenon is starting to wane, or do you still see plenty of life left in the genre?

It depends on where you look. The critics have been saying zombies were, uh, dead for years. They were saying it back before Max Brooks released World War Z. They were saying it again when Robert Kirkman’s “The Walking Dead” showed up on TV. They’ll go on saying indefinitely, I’m sure. And, one day, when a big budget zombie film falls flat on its face, the critics will dance around triumphantly claiming that they told us so.

But I think zombies will be around for a long while still. I’m sure their popularity will roller coaster over the next few years, but my guess is they’re here to stay. If you want proof of that, you don’t have to look much further than our language. We used to see people in shock and say they had the 2,000 yard stare. Now, we’re far more likely to say that person looks like a zombie. Economists talk about zombie markets and zombie businesses. A recent issue of The Economist, for example, even carried the cover story, “Night of the Living Fed.” Computer experts use terms like zombie terminals. There are dozens of other examples, but the fact of the matter is that the zombie is embedded in our language. Language is a very accurate way to gauge the mind of a society, and ours seems to have embraced the zombie on an archetypal level. So I’d say, yeah, the zombie is here to stay.

Are there some up-and-coming writers taking the living dead trope in new and exciting directions?

Absolutely. A few I’ve read recently, and enjoyed, are David Moody, Craig DiLouie and Wayne Simmons. Through them, and others, we’re seeing new variations on familiar themes. In many of these works, zombies are changing from the shambling, slow-moving reanimated dead of George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” to more complicated articulations of our current fears. They are changing from images of horror to metaphors for larger, more socially-based fears. Zombies are merely that, remember: reflections of what we fear most. No matter what you’re most afraid of, whether it’s illegal immigration or forced conformity or losing your mind or disease or death itself, we have a zombie for that. They are blank slates upon which authors and readers alike project their fears. To anybody curious about zombies being used in this way, I recommend checking out the first and second volumes of John Joseph Adams’ The Living Dead, John Skipp’s anthology, Zombies, and Christopher Golden’s anthology, The New Dead. Between those four books, a reader should be able to get a great perspective on the metaphorical potential of the zombie. You may also pick up a few new favorite writers in the process.

You were short listed for the Stoker in four categories this year: novel, long fiction (novella), short fiction and as editor of Dead Set: A Zombie Anthology. Which type of work do you enjoy most? Which would you most want to be remembered for?

Wow, that’s a hard one to answer. I think short stories give me the greatest joy while I’m writing them, but there’s no feeling in the world like typing that last line of a novel. For a moment, you ride this tremendous high. It’s disbelieving joy. It’s shock. There’s even the beginnings of the inevitable ennui that always follows a completed manuscript. But right when you hit the last keystroke, that moment, it’s glorious. You look at the page in stunned silence and try to drink in the fact that the book is done. So I guess I’d have to grudgingly say that the novel is my favorite venue. As for what I’d like to be remembered for…well, I’d be tickled pink just to be remembered.

In addition to horror, you also write crime fiction. Gutter Books released your hard-boiled crime novel Dodging Bullets late last year. First, tell us a little about the book, then tell us whether would you prefer to be considered a crime writer who also does horror or a horror writer who also does crime.

Dodging Bullets is special to me, not because it’s my first novel-length crime story, but because of where it takes place and the time of my life it captures. I went to college at Trinity University, here in San Antonio, and those years were some of the best I’ve ever known. Trinity is located on the outskirts of a very old neighborhood known as Monte Vista. The homes there are predominantly Craftsman-style bungalows, but with a few glorious Queen Anne and Victorian era mansions mixed in. Many of those homes have since been converted to apartments, and for a young man looking for adventure, and open to new experiences, it was a paradise. I remember nights there, walking down the streets, the cool night breezes blowing through the magnolia trees, hearing the soothing notes of Van Morrison’s Moondance, or Pink Floyd, or Bob Dylan, coming from the upstairs apartments. Inevitably, those walks ended up in those upstairs apartments, where the conversation lasted deep into the night. I imagine New York’s Greenwich Village was a lot like that, back in the day.

Needless to say, those days left an indelible impression on me, and the novel’s female lead lives the life I remember living. Her boyfriend, Peter “Peto” Hurst, is a different story. His life is based on my later experiences as a San Antonio police officer. It’s an odd experience, looking at your neighborhood as a cop. When I first broke out of the Academy, and was still doing my training rides with a more experienced officer, I was assigned to work the same area where I once lived the carefree life of a college student. For the first time, I was entering those upstairs apartments to answer calls for family disturbances and burglaries and all manner of cases. It was very much a through-the-looking-glass type experience. And Peto Hurst grew out of that. His relationship with his wealthy Trinity girlfriend, Shannon Dupree, was based on the collision of my memory with my present circumstance. The crime that destroys them is really incidental to that collision. What matters in that story is intensely personal, and perhaps invisible to the reader. I think the most satisfying stories, to the tellers at least, are like that.

The second part of your question is equally hard to answer, but I think I can do it in a lot less space. Horror is my first love. When people ask me what kind of books I write, I always tell them horror. That said, most of my horror stories contain a significant police procedural element. I think that focus will remain with me for a long while still. It may never go away, in fact.

What’s next for Joe McKinney? Any projects in the pipeline?

Well, this year is going to see several major releases, with April being the busiest month. I’ve got the third book in my Dead World series, Flesh Eaters, coming out on the first. Then, later in the month I’ll be traveling to Austin for the World Horror Convention, where I’ll be sitting on a few panels and launching my next novel, The Red Empire. The month after that I’ll be launching an anthology of abandoned building stories I edited with Mark Onspaugh. Late in the summer I have a fourth book, Lost Girl of the Lake, coming out. I co-wrote that one with Michael McCarthy. And then, late in the year, probably around November or December, I’ll be turning in the manuscript for the fourth, and probably final, book in the Dead World series, called The Zombie King. In between, I’ll be publishing short stories in a variety of anthologies, ranging from Bigfoot to zombies to post-apocalyptic tales. It’s shaping up to be a pretty good year.

San Antonio horror writer Joe McKinney has nabbed his second Bram Stoker Award nomination.

McKinney’s novel Apocalypse of the Dead was listed in the Superior Achievement in a Novel category alongside heavy hitters Joe Hill, nominated for Horns, and Peter Straub, nominated for [Read it all...]]]>

Joe McKinney's latest zombie novel is up for a Stoker Award.

San Antonio horror writer Joe McKinney has nabbed his second Bram Stoker Award nomination.

McKinney’s novel Apocalypse of the Dead was listed in the Superior Achievement in a Novel category alongside heavy hitters Joe Hill, nominated for Horns, and Peter Straub, nominated for A Dark Matter. Members of the Horror Writers Association vote on the Stokers annually to recognize the best in literary horror.

“I’m a little stunned,” McKinney said. “There are some writers on the ballot I grew up reading, and when I see my name up there next to theirs, well, that’s a humbling experience. I’m absolutely thrilled, though. It’s been a great week.”

McKinney’s novel “Quarantined” grabbed a nomination for the 2009 Stokers but ultimately lost out to Audrey’s Door by Sarah Langan.

Stay tuned, folks. Missions Unknown will catch up again with McKinney on Friday with a full “Made in S.A.” interview, where he talks about the nomination, his interest in hard-boiled crime writing and the future of the zombie-apocalypse genre.

And for those seeking the whole rundown on the 2010 Stoker nominations, here you go:

Superior Achievement in a NOVEL

HORNS by Joe Hill (William Morrow)
ROT AND RUIN by Jonathan Maberry (Simon & Schuster)
DEAD LOVE by Linda Watanabe McFerrin (Stone Bridge Press)
APOCALYPSE OF THE DEAD by Joe McKinney (Pinnacle)
DWELLER by Jeff Strand (Leisure/Dark Regions Press)
A DARK MATTER by Peter Straub (DoubleDay)

Superior Achievement in a FIRST NOVEL
BLACK AND ORANGE by Benjamin Kane Ethridge (Bad Moon Books)
A BOOK OF TONGUES by Gemma Files (Chizine Publications)
CASTLE OF LOS ANGELES by Lisa Morton (Gray Friar Press)
SPELLBENT by Lucy Snyder (Del Rey)

Superior Achievement in LONG FICTION
THE PAINTED DARKNESS by Brian James Freeman (Cemetery Dance)
DISSOLUTION by Lisa Mannetti (Deathwatch)
MONSTERS AMONG US by Kirstyn McDermott (Macabre: A Journey through Australia’s Darkest Fears)
THE SAMHANACH by Lisa Morton (Bad Moon Books)
INVISIBLE FENCES by Norman Prentiss (Cemetery Dance)

Superior Achievement in SHORT FICTION
RETURN TO MARIABRONN by Gary Braunbeck (Haunted Legends)
THE FOLDING MAN by Joe R. Lansdale (Haunted Legends)
1925: A FALL RIVER HALLOWEEN by Lisa Mannetti (Shroud Magazine #10)
IN THE MIDDLE OF POPLAR STREET by Nate Southard (Dead Set: A Zombie Anthology)
FINAL DRAFT by Mark W. Worthen (Horror Library IV)

Superior Achievement in an ANTHOLOGY
DARK FAITH edited by Maurice Broaddus and Jerry Gordon (Apex Publications)
HORROR LIBRARY IV edited by R.J. Cavender and, Boyd E. Harris (Cutting Block Press)
MACABRE: A JOURNEY THROUGH AUSTRALIA’S DARKEST FEARS edited by Angela Challis and Marty Young (Brimstone Press)
HAUNTED LEGENDS edited by Ellen Datlow and Nick Mamatas (Tor)
THE NEW DEAD edited by Christopher Golden (St. Martin’s Griffin)

Superior Achievement in a COLLECTION
OCCULTATION by Laird Barron (Night Shade Books)
BLOOD AND GRISTLE by Michael Louis Calvillo (Bad Moon Books)
FULL DARK, NO STARS by Stephen King (Simon and Schuster)
THE ONES THAT GOT AWAY by Stephen Graham Jones (Prime Books)
A HOST OF SHADOWS by Harry Shannon (Dark Regions Press)

Superior Achievement in NONFICTION
TO EACH THEIR DARKNESS by Gary A. Braunbeck (Apex Publications)
THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE HUMAN RACE by Thomas Ligotti (Hippocampus Press)
WANTED UNDEAD OR ALIVE by Jonathan Maberry and Janice Gable Bashman (Citadel)
LISTEN TO THE ECHOES: THE RAY BRADBURY INTERVIEWS by Sam Weller (Melville House Publications)

Superior Achievement in a POETRY collection
DARK MATTERS by Bruce Boston (Bad Moon Books)
WILD HUNT OF THE STARS by Ann K. Schwader (Sam’s Dot)
DIARY OF A GENTLEMAN DIABOLIST by Robin Spriggs (Anomalous Books)
VICIOUS ROMANTIC by Wrath James White (Bandersnatch Books)

San Antonio horror writer Joe McKinney has snagged four mentions on the Horror Writers Association‘s preliminary ballot for the 2010 Bram Stoker Awards. Each is in a different category.

McKinney, an SAPD cop by day, [Read it all...]]]>

The novel 'Apocalypse of the Dead' was one of four Joe McKinney works making the Stoker Awards' preliminary ballot.

San Antonio horror writer Joe McKinney has snagged four mentions on the Horror Writers Association‘s preliminary ballot for the 2010 Bram Stoker Awards. Each is in a different category.

McKinney, an SAPD cop by day, was listed in the Novel category for Apocalypse of the Dead (Pinnacle); Long Fiction for the novella “Blemish,” which appeared in Dark Recesses #12; Short Fiction for “Survivors,” which appeared in Dead Set: A Zombie Anthology; and Anthology for co-editing Dead Set along with Michelle McCrary.

As the name suggests, this list is not final ballot for the Stoker Awards. It simply reflects the works that earned the top of number of recommendations in each category. Over coming weeks, HWA members will vote to narrow the list down to the top five works in each category. Those will advance to the final ballot.

The Stokers, awarded yearly, recognize “superior achievement” in horror fiction.

For those of you keeping tabs on all the categories, a complete list follows:

Superior Achievement in a NOVEL

VIPERS by Lawrence C. Connolly (Fantasist Enterprises)
SIREN by John Everson (Leisure)
HORNS by Joe Hill (William Morrow)
IT CAME FROM DEL RIO by Stephen Graham Jones (Trapdoor Books)
SPARROW ROCK by Nate Kenyon (Leisure Books)
DESPERATE SOULS by Gregory Lamberson (Medallion Press)
THE FRENZY WAY by Gregory Lamberson (Medallion Press)
ROT AND RUIN by Jonathan Maberry (Simon & Schuster)
APOCALYPSE OF THE DEAD by Joe McKinney (Pinnacle)
EMPIRE OF SALT by Weston Ochse (Abaddon)
DWELLER by Jeff Strand (Leisure/Dark Regions Press)
A DARK MATTER by Peter Straub (DoubleDay)

Superior Achievement in a FIRST NOVEL

MR. SHIVERS by Robert Jackson Bennett (Orbit)
FREEK CAMP by Steve Burt (Steve Burt Creations)
THE MAN OF MYSTERY HILL by Tracy L. Carbone (Echelon Quake)
BLACK AND ORANGE by Benjamin Kane Ethridge (Bad Moon Books)
CARNIVAL OF FEAR by J.G. Faherty (Graveside Tales)
A BOOK OF TONGUES by Gemma Files (Chizine Publications)
AT THE END OF CHURCH STREET by Gregory Hall (Belfire Press)
MADIGAN MINE by Kirstyn McDermott (Picador Australia)
CASTLE OF LOS ANGELES by Lisa Morton (Gray Friar Press)
SPELLBENT by Lucy Snyder (Del Rey)

Superior Achievement in LONG FICTION

THE DOCTOR, THE KID, AND THE GHOSTS IN THE LAKE by Mort Castle (F Magazine)
REQUIEM FOR THE BURNING GOD by Shane Jiraiya Cummings (Cthulhu’s Dark Cults)
THE PAINTED DARKNESS by Brian James Freeman (Cemetery Dance)
CHASING THE DRAGON by Nicholas Kaufmann (Chizine)
DREAMS IN BLACK AND WHITE by John R. Little (Morning Star)
DISSOLUTION by Lisa Mannetti (Deathwatch)
BLEMISH by Joe McKinney (Dark Recesses #12)
THE SAMHANACH by Lisa Morton (Bad Moon Books)
JADE by Gene O’Neill (Bad Moon Books)
INVISIBLE FENCES by Norman Prentiss (Cemetery Dance)

Superior Achievement in SHORT FICTION

THE BEHELD by Paul Bens (Dark Discoveries #160)
RETURN TO MARIABRONN by Gary Braunbeck (Haunted Legends)
SURPRISE! by G.O. Clark (Dark Valentine 2)
SEMINAR Z by J. Comeau (Dead Set: A Zombie Anthology)
THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS by Brock Cooper (The New Bedlam Project)
THE FOLDING MAN by Joe R. Lansdale (Haunted Legends)
1925: A FALL RIVER HALLOWEEN by Lisa Mannetti (Shroud Magazine #10)
SURVIVORS by Joe McKinney (Dead Set: A Zombie Anthology)
BIG ROCK CANDY MOUNTAIN by Weston Ochse (Dark Discoveries #16)
ROADSIDE ASSISTANCE by David Sakmyster (Horror World)
TROOT by Margaret B. Simon (Null Immortalis)
THE DAYS OF FLAMING MOTORCYCLES by Catherynne Valente (Dark Faith)
FINAL DRAFT by Mark W. Worthen (Horror Library IV)

Superior Achievement in an ANTHOLOGY

DARK FAITH edited by Maurice Broaddus and Jerry Gordon (Apex Publications)
HORROR LIBRARY IV edited by R.J. Cavender and, Boyd E. Harris (Cutting Block Press)
CTHULHU’S DARK CULTS edited by David Conyers (Chaosium)
HAUNTED LEGENDS edited by Ellen Datlow and Nick Mamatas (Tor)
THE NEW DEAD edited by Christopher Golden (St. Martin’s Griffin)
BLACK WINGS edited S.T. Joshi (PS Publishing)
EVOLVE: VAMPIRE STORIES OF THE NEW UNDEAD edited by Nancy Kilpatrick (Edge Science Fiction & Fantasy Publishing)
NULL IMMORTALIS edited by D.F. Lewis (Megazanthus Press)
DEAD SET: A ZOMBIE ANTHOLOGY edited by Michelle McCrary and Joe McKinney (23 House Publishing)
SCENES FROM THE SECOND STOREY by Amanda Pillar and Pete Kempshall (Morrigan Books)

Superior Achievement in a COLLECTION

OCCULTATION by Laird Barron (Night Shade Books)
BLOOD AND GRISTLE by Michael Louis Calvillo (Bad Moon Books)
THIS WAY TO EGRESS by Lawrence C. Connolly (Ash-Tree Press)
WHAT WILL COME AFTER by Scott Edelman (PS Publishing)
FULL DARK, NO STARS by Stephen King (Simon and Schuster)
LITTLE THINGS by John R. Little (Bad Moon Books)
A HELL OF A JOB by Michael McCarty (Damnation Books)
A HOST OF SHADOWS by Harry Shannon (Dark Regions Press)
FUNGUS OF THE HEART by Jeremy Shipp (Raw Dog (Screaming Press)
HELLFIRE AND DAMNATION by Connie Corcoran Wilson (Sam’s Dot)

Superior Achievement in NONFICTION

WEIRD ENCOUNTERS by Joanne M. Austin (Sterling Publishing)
TO EACH THEIR DARKNESS by Gary A. Braunbeck (Apex Publications)
SHADOWS OVER FLORIDA by David Goudsward and Scott T. Goudsward (Bear Manor Media)
THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE HUMAN RACE by Thomas Ligotti (Hippocampus Press)
WANTED UNDEAD OR ALIVE by Jonathan Maberry and Janice Gable Bashman (Citadel)
MASTERS OF IMAGINATION by Michael McCarty (Bear Manor Media)
LISTEN TO THE ECHOES: THE RAY BRADBURY INTERVIEWS by Sam Weller (Melville House Publications)

Superior Achievement in a POETRY Collection

DARK MATTERS by Bruce Boston (Bad Moon Books)
LOVE CRAFT by Bryan Dietrich (Finishing Line Press)
CHEMICKAL REACTIONS by Karen L. Newman (Naked Snake Press)
WOOD LIFE by Rich Ristow (Snuff Books)
WILD HUNT OF THE STARS by Ann K. Schwader (Sam’s Dot)
DIARY OF A GENTLEMAN DIABOLIST by Robin Spriggs (Anomalous Books)
SAVAGE MENACE AND OTHER POEMS OF HORROR by Richard L. Tierney (P’rea Press)
VICIOUS ROMANTIC by Wrath James White (Bandersnatch Books)

Halloween always means a raft of entertainment options for horror fans, and this year is no exception.

Tonight, Galleria Santos is presenting a reading and discussion by horror author Joe McKinney, followed by screenings of the macabre short films “Inside” by Eduardo Ramirez and “Funeral March for [Read it all...]]]>

Author Joe McKinney rolls up his sleeves and autographs.

Halloween always means a raft of entertainment options for horror fans, and this year is no exception.

Tonight, Galleria Santos is presenting a reading and discussion by horror author Joe McKinney, followed by screenings of the macabre short films “Inside” by Eduardo Ramirez and “Funeral March for a Marionette” and “Fall of the House of Usher,” both by Eric Fonseca.

The reading kicks off the event at 7:30 p.m., and the films run until midnight. McKinney will autograph books following the reading, and the gallery will provide soft drinks and popcorn.

The bar scene at ArmadilloCon: Not quite as odd as the bar scene in "Star Wars," but still full of strange characters. Among them (left to right), SF Signal's John DeNardo, author Joe McKinney, Adventures in SciFi Publishing's Brent Bowen, and author/scholar Matt Cardin.

Joe McKinney

This [Read it all...]]]>

The bar scene at ArmadilloCon: Not quite as odd as the bar scene in "Star Wars," but still full of strange characters. Among them (left to right), SF Signal's John DeNardo, author Joe McKinney, Adventures in SciFi Publishing's Brent Bowen, and author/scholar Matt Cardin.

Joe McKinney

This year’s ArmadilloCon lived up to the legend of ArmadilloCons past. It’s one convention I never miss because it is so uniquely focused on books. I met with writers, fans, booksellers, old pros and new stars, but no matter where I went and what I was doing, the focus was on books. You just can’t get that kind of fun anywhere else.

My experience actually started on Thursday, a day before the convention itself got under way. I was set to be one of the instructors at the annual writer’s workshop the next day, and so, as a sort of welcoming party, the convention coordinators brought us all together at a great little Mexican restaurant near the hotel. As luck would have it, I ended up sitting between the convention’s Guest of Honor, Nancy Kress, and the writing workshop coordinator, the wonderfully talented Stina Leicht. Nancy is funny, insightful, and quite the authority on coffee, as it turns out. Our end of the table was having a great conversation…and then my dinner came. The waitress dropped this enormous platter of smoking fajita meat on the table in front of me, and of course it fumigated the room. Eyes were watering. People were coughing. Voices were raised to near shouting levels just to be heard over the noise my dinner was making. Afterwards, I went back to the hotel, got settled in, fired up the computer and a bottle of vodka, and got busy writing. All in all, a great opener.

The writer’s workshop the next morning was a real pleasure. It started with all the instructors assembling on the risers at the front of the room and going through a question and answer session guided by our coordinator, Stina Leicht. Afterwards, we broke up in groups. I was co-coaching Team Tolkien with very talented Melissa Tyler. It was my weekend, apparently, to meet up with genuinely cool people, of which Melissa Tyler is most certainly one. Here I’d like to give a special nod to the students in my group: Laura Beamer, Jennifer Daly, Raymon Daniel, Roger Kunshick, Salena Bargsley, and Teresa McWilliams. I was extremely impressed with my group’s work and their desire to get something out of the workshop. They were a real pleasure, and I think it won’t be too long before you start seeing some of their names in the major magazines.

Check after the jump for more from McKinney as well as Scott Cupp and Sanford Allen…

Afterwards, I met up with Sanford Allen (all around cool guy and a hell of a good writer), Matt Cardin (one of the smartest and coolest guys working in horror today), and Brent Bowen (one of the best interviewers around) and we made the rounds. We got something to eat at a local hamburger joint, then went back to the hotel to raise a little Cain with the other guests.

Saturday started with a hangover. Sanford and I went down for breakfast, then went back up to the room to write for about an hour. After that, my day got busy. I had two panels, one on researching and the other writing styles. The one on researching was my first ever turn as moderator, and despite the fact that I was about as nervous as I could be, I think the panel went really well. I owe this to the inspired contributions of Jess Nevins, Martha Wells, Cary Osborne, Robert Jackson Bennett, and Melissa Tyler.

Space Squid magazine's Matthew Bey lugs his books. (Photo by Lawrence Person)

Later that day, I sat in on a group signing in the dealer’s room and managed to sell out the books I brought. Actually, I was giving them away, so I guess I can’t really say I sold them out…but you get the idea.

Afterwards, I stuck around the Dealer’s Room and caught up with Mission Unknown’s very own Scott Cupp. I also saw old friends Lee Thomas, Nate Southard, Gabrielle Faust and Boyd E. Harris.

That afternoon I attended Stina Leicht’s reading from her new novel, due out in April from Nightshade books. I had heard that Stina is something of an expert on the Irish, and she certainly lived up to that reputation. Her reading dealt with the Bloody Sunday riots and was absolutely brilliant. She made a believer out of me, and as soon as her book comes out, I’m going to be in line for a copy. This lady is going places, folks.

Later, I got to watch Sanford Allen read his short story “Burma Jukebox.” He knocked it out of the park. If you’ve ever heard Sanford read, you know that smooth, country fried accent he can put on when he wants to….and brother, was he ever in good form. This is one of my favorite stories by him, a real Twilight Zone style twister of an ending at the end, and hearing it read aloud was an absolute treat.

After the reading, Sanford and I met up with Matt Cardin and Brent Bowen again and went to dinner. Matt had a panel on religion and worldbuilding right after dinner, so we all went to that. Matt was the moderator, and with some help from Matthew Bey of Space Squid Magazine, managed to put on a hell of a good panel.

The evening then turned into a party. Matthew Bey had a Space Squid party on the 8th floor, and we all ended up there. It got crowded and it got loud. Security showed up not once, but twice. The first time was a polite little warning to keep the volume down. The second time was a far sterner warning keep it inside the room. It reminded me of college, and, not surprisingly, was a wonderful time.

On Sunday, I had another panel, this one on worldbuilding. I was moderating, and again, things went great. I was especially pleased by the back and forth between Texas-based fantasy writer Steven Brust and audience member Matt Cardin. The audience really got into this panel, and I think it was one of the best I’ve ever participated in.

And finally, I finished off ArmadilloCon by reading my short story, “Survivors,” which I bill as a traditional zombie story…but it really ain’t. I was pleased to see the room was about two-thirds full, and I think I gave them a pretty good show.

Scott Cupp

It is always hard to pick out key moments from the convention because, I always have fun at each one I attend. ArmadilloCon 32 was no exception. Watching Kasey Lansdale perform on Saturday was certainly a highlight, especially when she invited Mark Finn, Master of Monkey Foo (or is it Poo?), up to sing a song he wrote for the Violet Crown Players’ performance of King Kong a few years ago. The piece was called “Don’t Shoot That Monkey Down” and it was a Dadaistic masterpiece (or something).

Stina Leicht and Elizabeth Moon enjoy the revelry. (Photo by Lawrence Person)

My panels were fun, especially the cross genres panel, which had Don Webb, Michael Bishop, and others on it. (Forgive me others. My brain is still fried from the convention.) And the Review/Criticism panel with Derek Johnson, Lawrence Person, Rick Claw, Martin Wagner, and Nancy Kress on it. And the vampire panel where I got to reiterate that there was nothing sexy about vampires. (They are undead Satan-spawn with no redeeming qualities and should be killed on sight!) I was also on the Welcome to ArmadilloCon panel with Karen Meschke and con chair Elizabeth Burton. I had a pleasant interview with Fan GOH Elspeth Bloodgood, which no one attended so we caught up on the last several years’ activities. And, unfortunately, I was unable to make my scheduled reading due to a conflict with selling books.

What is generally fun for me at the conventions is making new friendships or renewing old old ones. Among the old friendships renewed were with Michael Bishop, with whom I had spent a hectic day in Dallas some 20 years ago for an ill-fated book tour that fell apart that day. We had fun, but few books other than mine got signed that day. I also caught up again with Mark Nelson, an artist I had not seen in way too many years. I got one of his art books with a nice doodle inside. I talked some with john DeNardo of SF Signal along with Derek Johnson. I found out my short story “Thirteen Days of Glory” had been listed as one of six influential Texas science fiction stories by Don Webb in the previous Sunday’s Austin American Statesman. I spent some time with Mike Walsh of Old Earth Books, Mike Bishop, Mark Finn, Jess Nevins. I also saw Cary Osborne, an old friend and dancing partner from ArmadilloCons past. She is now in New Mexico and seems to be happy there.

As usual, I picked up great books, including the limited editions of SON OF RETRO PULP TALES (edited by Joe R. Lansdale and his son Keith) and THE REALITY DYSFUNCTION by Peter Hamilton. I got some reading copies of things like Lafferty’s PAST MASTER, Ed Bryant’s CINNABAR, Lawrence Bloch’s THE SCORELESS THAI, and other titles. I also picked up the ultra-limited lettered edition of Lansdale’s FOR A FEW STORIES MORE, which contains an extra novelette not printed anywhere else. I have one of the best Lansdale collections in the world including some items limited to fewer than 100 copies. Normally, I would pass this by (it was bloody expensive), but Joe and I have a collaboration in this one, so I needed it for my shelf of cool stuff.

I went to several parties including ConDFW and Texas in 2013. I managed to have dinner with several great friends, Becky and Jeff Haynie on Friday and Ed Scarbrough, Sam Hudson, Nina Siros, Willie Siros, Charles Siros, and Jonathan Miles. Of the seven of us there, three had birthdays within a one-week period around the convention (Nina on Thursday before, Ed on Sunday and Willie on Tuesday).

Sanford Allen

I attended my first ArmadilloCon three years ago, after decades of staying clear of the SF convention circuit. My memories of cons past were of people in badly fitting Star Trek costumes haggling over toys and packing into hotel rooms to watch sixth-generation copies of anime shows.

If that’s also your memory of SF cons, listen up: ArmadilloCon is not that. Not by a long shot. It’s a con for writers, aspiring writers and people who love SF, fantasy and horror literature and art. Sure, there are a handful of people walking around in steampunk duds and few toys on sale in the dealer’s room, but mostly it’s about the books.

I spent a good deal of ArmadilloCon 32 hanging with author and Missions contributor Joe McKinney, podcaster and whisky expert Brent Bowen and the brilliant horror scholar and writer Matt Cardin (who also records eerily beautiful music, it turns out). The three of us put down unhealthy amounts of booze and spent quite a bit of time talking about our favorite obscure horror films. I also enjoyed hooking up with old friends Nicole Duson, an up-and-coming Austin writer, and John DeNardo of the brilliant SF Signal website.

This was the first year I participated in panel discussions, and they turned out to be a blast. During a panel on the New Weird, Neal Barrett Jr. and I agreed that there probably isn’t a New Weird, per se, since many writers — including Neal — have been weird for a long, long time. I also enjoyed my panel on the challenge of writing short stories, where I ended up between luminary authors Michael Bishop and Howard Waldrop (how the hell did I end up so lucky?). Finally, I ended up on a panel about H.P. Lovecraft’s enduring legacy with Matt Cardin and Don Webb, who displayed amazing knowledge of the author’s work. The always witty Joe R. Lansdale made a great case (and one I agreed with) that horror authors can learn far more from writers like Ray Bradbury, Robert Bloch and Flannery O’Connor.

Between all the panelizing, socializing and drinking, I managed to fit in a few readings. Stina Leicht read from her upcoming novel, which mixes Celtic mythology and the complicated politics of Northern Ireland. Can’t wait for that one to hit the stands. Joe McKinney’s Sunday afternoon reading of his story “Survivors” proved a great capper to the con.