Skull Full Of Spurs

Craft a novel that evokes the spirit of the West Western Movies don't appear as frequently today as they did in the 1960s, but those that make the cut in Hollywood prompt frequent Oscar buzz. Nor have Western novels been eclipsed. In 2010, Amazon.com offered 213 new Western novels for sale, plus many reprints of older classics. Writing Westerns examines what a Western is, while teaching you how to research and write one. You'll benefit from the author’s experience—248 books published since 1977—and the example of masters in the field, from Zane Grey and Max Brand to Louis L’Amour and Cormac McCarthy. Each chapter includes a short list of recommended sources for further reading. Appendices to the main text include a glossary of Old West slang and jargon, which is helpful in writing realistic dialogue, a timeline of significant historical events, and a list of classic Western films and novels. Research, talent, and imagination are the keys to writing a successful novel. Join us now, as we set off into the West.

From automatons to zombies, many elements of fantasy and science fiction have been cross-pollinated with the Western movie genre. In its second edition, this encyclopedia of the Weird Western includes many new entries covering film, television, animation, novels, pulp fiction, short stories, comic books, graphic novels and video and role-playing games. Categories include Weird, Weird Menace, Science Fiction, Space, Steampunk and Romance Westerns.

Available for the first time in a single collection, twenty-one short stories of the supernatural, the undead, and the macabre by Richard Lee Byers, author of DEAD TIME and DARK FORTUNE. Stories included in this collection: The Things That Crawl The Q Word Blood and Limestone Wisdom Fright Wig St. Paul’s Churchyard, New Year’s Day The Guide Things I Learned About Science From Popular Entertainment Foragers Netflix Ghost Hunters Night Games End of Life Vets The Wizard and the Dragon Black Griefer Madness Mister Shade Office Space The Plague Knight Castle of Maidens Zombies in Paradise

In a review of his first collection, The Convulsion Factory, esteemed critic Stanley Wiater stated, “This writer knows where the sad people, the bad people, and the mad people live.” Indeed. For his expansive command of characters as well as the situations, from the visionary to the grittily mundane, in which he finds them, and for his lyrically crafted prose and skewed perspectives (not to mention his penchant for run-on sentences), Hodge has racked up an eclectic list of comparisons: from Elmore Leonard to Clive Barker, from Honoré Daumier to David Cronenberg, from Carl Jung to Marilyn Monroe*. Now comes his most far-reaching collection yet, 150,000 words chronicling the people, places, and things that his readers have come to expect, but never predict: The dancer who becomes the latest repository for the fervent sexuality that fueled the world’s most ancient cities. The serial killer whose grasp of media symbiosis puts him light-years ahead of the law. The modern-day castrato learning undreamt-of lessons in love, death, and divine madness. The Civil War veteran living a grotesque twist on the Old West myth of the outlaw who never takes off his gun belt. William Faulkner once noted that writers are congenital liars … that if they weren’t liars, they would never have become writers in the first place. In that spirit, Brian Hodge has been enthusiastically lying ever since his earliest mastery of the alphabet, guided by only one stipulation: Never letting a trivial thing like the facts get in the way of the ugly truth. * Sadly, the Monroe comparison is a total fabrication. Stories included in this collection: “Madame Babylon” “The 121st Day of Sodom” “Empathy” “Cancer Causes Rats” “Some Other Me” “Nesting Instincts” “Before the Last Snowflake Falls” “An Autumnal Equinox Folly” “Confession” “Cenotaph” “Far Flew the Boast of Him” “Now Day Was Fled As the Worm Had Wished” “Pages Stuck By a Bowie Knife to a Cheyenne Gallows” “Driving the Last Spike” “Little Holocausts” “Dead Giveaway” “Past Tense” “Our Lady of Sloth and Scarlet Ivy” “The Last Testament” “The Alchemy of the Throat” “Come Unto Me, All Ye Heavy Laden” “Endnotes: From the Gutters of Civilization to Your Discerning Eye”

The World Fantasy Award-winning anthology series reaches its twelfth spectacular volume. Collecting around a quarter of a million words by some of the biggest names and rising stars of the genre, this latest annual showcase of all things dark and deadly includes stories and novellas by Ramsey Campbell, Dennis Etchison, Terry Lamsley, Tim Lebbon, Paul J. McAuley, Kim Newman, Michael Marshall Smith and Hollywood director Mick Garris. Also featuring the most comprehensive overview of the year, a fascinating necrology and a list of useful contacts, this is the one book that all lovers of the supematural and psychological terror will want on their shelves.

The fifth in Little Book Series II is Jack Ketchum's A Little Emerald Book of Ephemera, a delightful collection of essays, opinions, reflections, and even a few poems. Included in this collection: "A Week in the Work-Life of a Nonessential Author" "Barflies" "Remembering Charlie" "Afterword to Tales from a Darker State" "On Writing The Girl Next Door" "Afterword to the Movie Tie-In Edition of The Girl Next Door" "Introduction to the Filmscript of The Girl Next Door" "On The Lost" "Foreword to Cover" "Afterword to Hide and Seek" "Afterword to Old Flames" "On Writing Joyride" "Afterword to Only Child aka Strangehold" "Afterword to the Unexpurgated Off Season" "On Writing Offspring" "Talked to God" "Introduction to The Crossings" "Afterword to Sleep Disorder" "Elvis Ku" "The I'm Not Sam Blogs" "On John Carpenter's The Thing"