Coming to a Con Probably not Near You

Looks like it’s going to be a busy fall for me. But I’m looking forward to it. I’ll be going to both “Undead Con” in late October, and to CONtraflow in early November. Both are local New Orleans cons and I’ll be sitting on panels with some talented folks.

Undead Con is put on by Anne Rice’s Vampire Lestat Fan Club. All kinds of exciting things are happening there, including the Annual Vampire Ball, which is the place to be in New Orleans for Halloween. This year the events will be held October 28-29.

CONtraflow is November 4-6, and David Brin will be the author guest of honor. Since I’ve got a lot of his books, I’ll be looking forward to meeting him and getting his autograph. There are many other great guests as well. I’m not sure what panels I’ll be sitting on yet but no doubt I will have fun.

If you’re gonna be in the area at either of these times, or both, I’d love to see you.
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Vampires and Sex at Novel Spaces

I'm posting over at Novel Spaces today on "Vampires and Sex." I hope you'll check it out.
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Tales of Crimson and Black

Midnight in Rosary...............

Tales of Crimson and Black...................

Predation is in the bones, in the marrow. Even when sated a carnivore will still hunt. It wants the wet taste of life, the sweetness of watermelon flesh. Its need to kill isn't rational. And it won't be denied its blood.

Midnight in Rosary is out. It was released yesterday and I’ve finally had a moment to savor and appreciate it. I’m proud of this collection of vampire and werewolf tales. Naturally I’d like everyone to read it. But I want you to know in case you do that it’s a little different than the other stuff you may have read by me.

These stories are not heroic fantasy like the Talera novels or Bitter Steel. Some of them are horror, although not as graphic as Cold in the Light. Most would be defined as dark fantasy or Urban Fantasy. And there is quite a lot of sex, which ranges from the graphic to the romantic. The characters in these stories are much more conflicted than Ruenn MacLang (Talera) or Thal Kyrin (Bitter Steel). They carry a lot more doubt around with them. Many of them have made bad mistakes and they are paying for those mistakes every day. With their blood. With their souls.

Here are some of the story titles:

Wanting the Mouth of a Lover
The Cold of Snow and Ghosts
In Memory of the Sun
The Poetry of Blood
River Road; Night Music
Innocent Little Sin

If you’d like to read the book, you can find it at:

Barnes & Noble

Or Amazon:



It’s a bit cheaper at Barnes & Noble at the moment.

And I hope you’ll bear with me while I talk about the book more over the next few days.

Best wishes to all,
Charles
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Already Sunday

It seems that when you’re working, time attacks you. It surrounds you, beats you down, and crows over your tormented body. Not so when you're off. Time flees like a teasing lover, leaving only a hint of gossamer behind to wet one’s desire for it.

In other words, how the hell did it get to be Sunday already? Thursday I posted here and then did various writing related and last minute school related business. Friday I wrote all day, Saturday most of the day. I made great progress, but not on fiction. I have articles due January 14 concerning two graphic novels, Bloodstar and A.D. New Orleans. I always kind of dread starting such articles but always enjoy them once I get into them. I will easily make my deadline and should have some time left for fiction.

Today I don’t plan to do a lot of writing. The Saints play the Ravens and I’m quite concerned about that. Lana also brought home the remastered versions of the original Star Trek episodes and I want to see those. We watched three of the earliest last night, “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” in which we learn that James Kirk’s middle initial is…R, “Charlie X,” about a teenage boy with super psychic powers developing his first crush, and “The Man Trap,” which is about the last surviving salt vampire.

Speaking of vamps, I dreamt about them last night. I was a scientist who had just been assigned to a research lab and they took me on tour. Behind one heavily locked door they kept some vampire subjects. On the left was a single fairly large vampire who was incredibly old. He was in a glass enclosed chamber somewhat like an oversized coffin. On the right side were 8 glass chambers, 4 on bottom, 4 on top, and this was where they kept the vampire experimental subjects. They were humanoid but only about half human size; they generally looked like demons with reddish-brown hairless skin, ridged wings, and clawed hands and feet. As we came in they started pressing their fanged mouths to the glass walls of their cages and beat their wings wildly.

Later, I needed to get one of the vamp subjects for an experiment but when I went into the holding chamber all the cages were empty. I woke up about that time so I didn’t get to have any adventures fighting off vampires. More’s the pity.

Now it’s almost time to go get some Popeye’s Fried Chicken and get ready to watch the pregame show. Let time be with me.

And with all my friends (you, that is) on this December Sunday.
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A New Quiz: Vampires

Oh, those pesky vampires. Blood suckers extraordinaire. The first vampires in literature were evil. But over time vampires took on more and more romantic and sympathetic elements until today they can even be leading men. Can you match the famous vampires from page and screen on the left with their creators on the right? Zero to five correct means you’re either covering for the vamps or you’re VQ is a little low. Six to ten correct is a good score. You’ve probably bitten a few necks yourself. Over ten correct makes me wonder if the phrase “blood bank” has more than the usual meaning for you.

1. Vampirella (1st issue) ............... Laurell K. Hamilton
2. Carmilla ........................... Anne Rice
3. Saint-Germain ...................... Whitley Strieber
4. Molochai, Twig, & Zillah ............. Suzy McKee Charnas
5. Prince Vulkan ...................... Robert R. McCammon
6. Edward Weyland ...................... T. Prest OR M. Rymer
7. David Lyle Hardwick ................. Stephen King
8. Jean-Claude ......................... P. N. Elrod
9. Jonathan Barrett .................... Nancy Kilpatrick
10. Dracula .............................. J. Sheridan Le Fanu
11. Joshua York ......................... Forrest Ackerman
12. Miriam Blaylock ...................... Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
13. Varney .............................. Poppy Z. Brite
14. Barlow .............................. George R. R. Martin
15. Lestat .............................. Bram Stoker






Answers: (Author's Last name only) 1. Ackerman, 2. Le Fanu, 3. Yarbro, 4. Brite, 5. McCammon, 6. Charnas, 7. Kilpatrick, 8. Hamilton, 9. Elrod, 10. Stoker, 11. Martin, 12. Streiber, 13. Prest or Rymer, 14. King, 15. Rice.
*****

NOTE ALSO: Please check out this book giveway and consider the worthy cause Homes for Our Troops.

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Midnight in Rosary

I appreciate everyone’s input on my title issues. Midnight in Rosary and Midnight in Crimson were the top choices from the responders. Several liked “Mouth Torn with Sorrow,” which I also think is an evocative line but perhaps too “vague” as a title for the collection. A number of folks were strongly against the use of “holocaust” in the title. I can understand that, although the word to me does not instantly evoke the Nazi holocaust against the Jews. I think it’s because I learned the meaning of the word from reading years before I learned the history of WWII.

I decided after much cogitation to go with Midnight in Rosary. I believe it evokes a kind of feeling that appears in many of the stories within the collection. However, I know Borgo Press likes subtitles so I’m thinking of presenting them with: Midnight in Rosary: Tales of Crimson and Black. Maybe that’ll cover all the bases.

In other news, I watched A Princess of Mars on the SYFY channel this evening. There were some elements I liked. I actually thought most of the characters were pretty good and I developed some interest in them. I particularly thought the Tharks were well done as characters, despite having only four limbs instead of six. I wish they’d given the Dejah Thoris dark hair and some expression other than sour lemon, but I could live with it. One of the things I loved about ERB’s Barsoom books was the swordplay and this had very little in it. That’s probably for the best seeing as how the one sword fight was pretty badly handled. Overall, though, it certainly didn’t do ERB’s story justice and I don’t think it will jumpstart a new Sword & Planet revolution. If you haven’t read the first three Barsoom books then you’ve missed something. In my opinion, at least. Here’s a piece from ERB’s original story:

“As I stood thus meditating, I turned my gaze from the landscape to the heavens where the myriad stars formed a gorgeous and fitting canopy for the wonders of the earthly scene. My attention was quickly riveted by a large red star close to the distant horizon. As I gazed upon it I felt a spell of overpowering fascination--it was Mars, the god of war, and for me, the fighting man, it had always held the power of irresistible enchantment. As I gazed at it on that far-gone night it seemed to call across the unthinkable void, to lure me to it, to draw me as the lodestone attracts a particle of iron.”
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Book Titles

As I’ve said before on this blog and elsewhere, I love good titles. I know I’m in a minority, but a good title on a book is far more likely to earn the work a second look by me than is a good cover. If the cover is interesting I may look at it and no further. But if the title is good I’ll always open the book to have a look inside.

As far as my own longer works go, Writing in Psychology was a natural in nonfiction but Write With Fire was tough to come up with. I spent close to a week trying out and discarding different titles on that book, but in the end I’m pretty happy with the one I chose.

With fiction, the Taleran books were pretty easy to title. I wanted a format that was in keeping with common practice in Sword and Planet fiction, such as Warlord of Mars or A Sword for Kregen. Cold in the Light seemed a natural title for a horror thriller, and Bitter Steel is a title for a heroic fantasy collection that I’ve had in my mind since graduate school. My vampire haiku chapbook was harder. I wanted something to evoke the sense of the vampire, and also suggest a certain eroticism. I ended up choosing Wanting the Mouth of Lover, which was a title I’d already used years before on a vampire short story. My image today is the cover of Wanting the Mouth of a Lover by the way, which was drawn by the Lovely Lana.

Now I’m struggling with a title again. And this one, too, is going to be for a collection of vampire material, in this case short stories. My original choice for a title was Holocaust in Rosary, which is the title of one poem in the collection. I like that title a lot but I’m worried that it might be a bit misleading. Here’s part of my problem. Although there will be some pretty nasty vampires in the collection, the majority of the stories feature more of the romantic/erotic kind of vampire made popular by writers like Anne Rice and Laurell K. Hamilton. These are the kinds of vampires that were popular and selling when I first started writing vampire fiction in the 1990s. “Holocaust” seems to suggest a bit more bloodthirstiness than will be evident in the book, although “Rosary” certainly seems to soften the edge a bit.

A second issue, and one I’d like some feedback on, is that I believe this is the first book of mine that could be more popular with women than with men. Now, I hope I don’t get blasted for being sexist. I know plenty of women who like hardcore horror fiction and who read sword and sorcery and hard boiled noir fiction. However, I still think the readership for books like the Talera novels is more likely to be male, while I know a lot more females who read Rice and Hamilton. I hope my collection will appeal to both genders, but the core of the material seems closer, to me, to the kind of fiction that is more popular among women.

That being said, I have to wonder whether “Holocaust in Rosary” is the kind of title that might appeal to women, or if I should try something different. Here are some possibilities that I’ve been thinking of. Anyone have a preference?

HOLOCAUST IN ROSARY
MIDNIGHT IN ROSARY
BLOOD IN ROSARY
MIDNIGHT IN CRIMSON
MIDNIGHT IN RED
MOUTH TORN WITH SORROW

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A Quiz for Vampires

Oh, those pesky vampires. Blood suckers extraordinaire. The first vampires in literature were evil. But over time vampires took on more and more romantic and sympathetic elements until today they can even be leading men. Can you match the famous vampires from page and screen on the left with their creators on the right? Zero to five correct means you’re either covering for the vamps or you’re VQ is a little low. Six to ten correct is a good score. You’ve probably bitten a few necks yourself. Over ten correct makes me wonder if the phrase “blood bank” has more than the usual meaning for you.


1. Vampirella (1st issue):::::::::::::::::::::Laurell K. Hamilton
2. Carmilla::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::Anne Rice
3. Saint-Germain::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::Whitley Strieber
4. Molochai, Twig, & Zillah:::::::::::::::::::Suzy McKee Charnas
5. Prince Vulkan::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::Robert R. McCammon
6. Edward Weyland:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::T. Prest OR M. Rymer
7. David Lyle Hardwick::::::::::::::::::::::::Stephen King
8. Jean-Claude::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::P. N. Elrod
9. Jonathan Barrett:::::::::::::::::::::::::::Nancy Kilpatrick
10. Dracula::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::J. Sheridan Le Fanu
11. Joshua York::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::Forrest Ackerman
12. Miriam Blaylock :::::::::::::::::::::::::::Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
13. Varney:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::Poppy Z. Brite
14. Barlow:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::George R. R. Martin
15. Lestat:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::Bram Stoker


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Answers: (Last name only) 1. Ackerman, 2. Le Fanu, 3. Yarbro, 4. Brite, 5. McCammon, 6. Charnas, 7. Kilpatrick, 8. Hamilton, 9. Elrod, 10. Stoker, 11. Martin, 12. Streiber 13. Prest or Rymer, 14. King, 15. Rice.

Wanting the Mouth of a Lover

I don't often talk about projects before they are in print but the word is actually out in some quarters about this so I'll say something here. Spec House of Poetry (Link to the right)is planning to publish a Chapbook of my work under the title Wanting the Mouth of a Lover. All the poems are experimental haiku, primarily centered around the theme of vampirism. J. Bruce Fuller, who runs Spec House, is an energetic fellow with a passion for poetry. He's on the cutting edge of the burgeoning Scifaiku movement, and also publishes a magazine called The Shantytown Anomaly, which has presented some award winning and award nominated poetry in the last couple of years.

I'm very happy about the chapbook. It'll be my first. I talked to J. quite a bit at Babel Con and we sat on a poetry panel together. (Cons are great for making and renewing contacts.) I sent him two possible collections for chapbooks and he really liked the haiku grouping. He talks a bit about it at the Spec House site under "A Welcoming." Some of the poems that are to be included in the chapbook have been previously published, but most have not. I'm not sure when this will be published. It seems most likely to be late this year but it's up to J.

J's own poetry is featured in Aurore Australe, which I mentioned here a few posts back and which can be found at the Spec House site. His personally blog is here.