If You Lived Here

Lorrie McCullough, the head of marketing at Underland Press, alerted me to an interesting project they have in the works. It’s called If You Lived Here: The Top 30 All Time Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Worlds, and will serve as a guide to the imaginary worlds we have loved in fiction. You can make nominations of such worlds and leave comments at www.ifyoulivedherebook.com, and your input could get into the book itself, which will be authored and edited by acclaimed writer/editor Jeff VanderMeer.

Having spent the last few weeks in the imaginary land of Westeros (long enough that I feel an urge to stab friends and enemies alike), I can see the need for this guide, and I imagine it will make a fine addition to your bookshelf whEN published.
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A Personal Announcement

Those of you who are regular visitors to this site (both of you!) may be aware of the short interviews I’ve been doing for Cemetery Dance, a series called We Interrupt This Author. I’ve had a lot of fun doing those, and it’s been great working with the authors involved and with Norman Prentiss, who supervised me with those. I have had the greatest admiration for CD, and respect for the position it holds within the genre.

The magazine version of Cemetery Dance is undergoing a slight reorganization. Norman will be the new Associate Editor for Fiction, and he offered me the position of Associate Editor, Non-Fiction. Naturally, I accepted. Cemetery Dance magazine is, in my opinion, the premier periodical in the horror fiction genre. It has been around for 23 years, an amazing longevity given the state of magazine publishing, and practically every author who has made a splash in horror or dark suspense has made an appearance in its pages. I am greatly honored by this opportunity, and hope I can live up to the high standards of the magazine. I thank Norman and the rest of the CD staff for this. The first issue I’m working on should appear in early summer.

This has been in the works for a little while, and I’m happy to be able to make it public. As far as I know right now, the interview series will continue, although they will be shifting to a new location.
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Darkeva's Blog

I’m always happy to recommend other horror-related blogs and websites, partly because people waiting on me to post new content can die of boredom. Today I’d like to recommend Darkeva’s Blog. Darkeva certainly has a better-designed site than I (although I can’t say that takes much), and seems to cover the gamut of horror fiction.

Darkeva also is Canadian, and one of the perplexing things is how many of the horror-related bloggers with whom I‘ve interacted hail from my country’s northern neighbor. Hopefully, these people will vouch for me when I seek political asylum there. ;-)
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Merry Christmas to Everyone

I hope Christmas was everything you wanted it to be, and remember, Santa is an anagram for Satan.
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My Posting Has Not Been So Prolix

After the big October push, I slacked off of posting, but I will resume shortly, I promise. Like you care.
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Yeah, Well, Okay

So I took the week to think about it and have decided not to nuke the site. Hold on to your hats, as I'm sure an announcement like this will have a big effect on the stock market.
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Is The World Still Here?

I know a lot of people are worried about the Large Hadron Collider, specifically that you'll wake up and discover the LHC has destroyed the world. To put your mind at ease, just check the website Has the Large Hadron Collider Destroyed the World Yet? website This has been a public service announcement.
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Getting Back in the Game

Posting has been light of late, what with the holidays and various weirdness in the real life, such that it is, but normal levels will return by next week. Don't look so thrilled. Anyway, during the hiatus, I've read several books, and watched a number of movies, including at least two that feature improbable giant reptiles, so you won't want to miss it.
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We Now Resume Our Regular Broadcasting Schedule

My hard drive has been replaced (again), and I am back, a little poorer and a little crankier, but who will notice? We will now resume our regular schedule of inanities. When I picked up my computer from the stoner at Best Buy, we had this exchange:

Stoner: We put in a Western Digital drive this time.
Me: Uh, okay. Good, I guess.
Stoner: Your problem was the last time you replaced your drive you put in one of those piece of crap Seagate drives. Seagate makes nothing but junk, and if you go that way, you can expect problems.
Me: You were the one who put in the Seagate drive.
Stoner: Ah. Oh. How about I knock ten dollars off the price?

Intermittent Blog Is Intermittent

It's the holiday season and you know what that means: my hard drive has died. For the third year in a row. So, until it is repaired/replaced, posting here will be greatly reduced. You will have to suffer without it, I'm afraid, as there will not be the planned "10 Greatest Christmas Novels Featuring a Giant Reptile" or "10 Greatest Movies In Which You See Santa Claus Full Monty Naked." Maybe next year. But don't despair, posting will return to normal levels just as soon as the stoners at Best Buy get the drive changed. Until then Dead In The South isn't truly gone, it lives on inside of each of us. Sort of like cancer.
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Horror News

No, I don't have any news, that is the name of a new (to me) website, located at www.horrornews.net. Good looking site, check it out.
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Ginger Nuts of Horror

Everyone can come up with a better title for their blog than I can. Ginger Nuts of Horror is a relatively new blog written by my good friend Jim McLeod. Jim lives in the remote East Asian country of Scotland, so he reviews books we don't often here about here in the U.S. of A. Jim is a righteous and entertaining guy, so check out his blog. if nothing else, you can trade insults in a Scottish dialect.
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Donald M. Grant, R.I.P.

Donald M. Grant, one of the great publishers in the horror genre, and who published a lot of books presently on my shelves, has died at the age of 82. May he rest in peace.
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R.I.P. J. G. Ballard

British author J.G. Ballard has died at 78 after an extended illness. BBC News has the story here, although I would differ with the term “cult author”. With a couple of high profile films made from his work, I think he surpassed that status.
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Some Recommended Sites

A couple of links have been added to the sidebar. The first is to the website of author William Meikle, whose book The Amulet I just reviewed (and whose The Sirens is forthcoming). Check it out.

The other is for the excellent horror news/reviews site Bloody Good Horror. The proprietors of the site also feature a very informative and entertaining podcast available for download.

No More Haunt For Me

A few people have e-mailed me to ask what happened to my page at The Haunt. Speculation has been that I committed some unspeakably vile act that caused me to get banned for life from all decent venues. Thanks guys, for having such an accurate opinion of me, but it isn’t true in this case.

I think the concept of Twitter is cool, and if you are a horror-loving Facebook/MySpace type, it is probably something you’ll enjoy. Unfortunately, I’m pretty anti-social by nature, so after I got the page set up the way I wanted it, I couldn’t figure out what to do with it. I talked to the same people I talk to everywhere else, and couldn’t get into the message boards. So, I nuked the page.

This is not meant in any way to be a criticism of The Haunt, it is just my personal preference. And to John, who implied that it was odd that I shun Facebook and MySpace, but set up an account at The Haunt, the universe is now back in alignment.

Follow Me, Follow You

No, not the Genesis song. We Southerners are known for our politeness. We’re even mindful of our manners when we’re stabbing you in the book. Being a low down double crossing cheat is one thing but rude? Heaven forbid. To that end, if you have placed a link to this blog on your website, please let me know if I have not reciprocated, and I will correct it immediately. I was either not paying attention, or, in one case, thought I had done so when I hadn’t. You can leave a message in the comments, or e-mail me with your info at KentAllard1@gmail.com. Thanks much, and bless yore pea-pickin’ hearts.
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R.I.P. Robert Quarry

Veteran actor Robert Quarry has died. Quarry played the vampire Count Yorga in two low-budget but entertaining films in the 1970s, and was the antagonist for Vincent Price in Dr. Phibes Rises Again. Fangoria has a very extensive write-up of his life at http://www.fangoria.com/home/news/15-rip/1448-rip-robert-quarry.html, which will tell you anything you would want to know about Mr. Quarry. Rest in peace.
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A New Serial Novel From Douglas Clegg

Starting this summer, Douglas Clegg will be offering a new serialized novel called The Locust free to subscribers of his newsletter. For anyone who doesn’t already know, Clegg is one of the very best writers working in the horror genre today. If you have already read his work, you will want to be sure you’re signed up for the newsletter so you don’t miss it. If you haven’t read his books, you should, and this would be a good place to start. I can’t endorse this too much, he is one of my favorite authors,as I have stated before. For more information on The Locust, and to sign up for the newsletter, go to www.DouglasClegg.com.
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Something For You

Watching a lot of horror movies has pretty much inured me to the sight of death. Coupled with my general hatred of mankind, this allows me to witness countless kills without altering the pace of my popcorn-chewing. It has also given me a good grasp on a few of the most common mistakes potential victims, which I felt I should share with you. To be honest, at first I thought “Why bother?” (see general hatred of mankind above), then it occurred to me that some of the readers of Dead In The South could be among those victims. If you guys start getting whacked, pretty soon the millions I’m raking in from ad revenue on this site will dry to a trickle, and I’ll have to live on the money I’ve got invested with my pal Bernie Madoff. So consider this a public service announcement.

You are out for your usual midnight stroll past the graveyard, when you hear cracking and ripping sounds coming from the boneyard. You glance behind you to find that the dead are rising from their graves, hungry for your precious brains. You turn to run and see a huge guy wearing a mask and carrying a bloody machete coming that way toward you. A car screeches up from the side, and a skinny blonde steps out. It’s Ann Coulter. In terror, you break the fourth wall, turn and say “Hey, Dead In The South guy! How can I get out of this mess?” Don’t worry, I’m here with the answer.

Dude, you are completely screwed. Zombies and psychos? You don’t have a chance. Throw in indestructible killing machine Ann Coulter, and you know those questions you’ve pondered about whether there’s an afterlife? You’re about to get an answer.

Just in case there’s someone else in dire but less hopeless straits, here are some life lessons I’ve learned by sitting on my couch, eating Cheetos and watching bad horror movies. These are things that have cost some of the worst actors of our generation their lives.

1. If you are home alone and some psycho begins to break in the house (this works in other scenarios as well), weapon up. It would be great if you have a loaded rocket launcher lying around, but if you’re not a survivalist, any blunt object will do. More people have been killed by being hit over the head throughout history than have died from gunshot.* Grab your club!

2. You’ve been chased by a psycho who has killed all your friends, but now you got the drop on him and managed to knock him down and stun him. Grab his weapon! Maybe you abhor firearms, but trust me, that shotgun will look better on you than him.

3. In a related scenario, if you think you’ve killed the bad guy chasing you, it doesn’t hurt to make sure. Maybe the hammer blow to the head killed him, maybe it didn’t, but remember the famous quote from the movie Love Story: “Decapitation means never having to say you’re sorry.” Let’s see him get back up without a head.

4. Are you one of those people who pick up the newspaper, then read it out loud to everyone around you? Then I hope the monster gets you. If you are that person, though, when you find an ancient book while exploring an old house, for Pete’s sake, don’t read it out loud, you don’t know where it has been. This is doubly true if the title of the book is any variation of the word “Necronomicon”.

5. You’re a young woman alone in the woods in the dark, and you come to a lake. Of course, you have an immediate urge to strip naked and go for a late night swim. The warm water rushing past your full yet supple breasts, swirling and caressing you in that private place…Sorry, I zoned out for a moment. Don’t do it. You’ll either set off the psycho watching you from the trees or attract the attention of the fish people that live in the depths of the lake.

6. If you are trying to make your escape in an automobile, don’t hesitate to run over your pursuer if you get a chance. Due to the basic softness of humans, it won’t hurt your car that much, and even if what is chasing you can’t be killed, a high-velocity impact with half a ton of metal will slow anyone down.**

7. Suspect your family and friends. You may well be in a movie being made by one of those people who likes to have the identity of the killer be a big twist, so it could be someone close to you. If there’s anyone in the group who doesn’t seem to be useful, go ahead and take them out. Even if they were innocent, they were probably going to die anyway.

8. If you are a young woman, tone down the makeup. Dress modestly. Be kind to others, yet resourceful. If you are in a slasher scenario, this should make you Final Girl, and she usually lives. Very important: if there is another young lady in the group with the same attributes, she is dangerous competition, and you should kill the bitch immediately.

9. If you find an old box, locked or chained up, don’t open it. It might contain riches, but your luck’s never been good before, so why should it start now?

10. Always assume that aliens are hostile. Better to be the one apologizing for an interstellar incident than the one reduced to smoking cinders.

So there you have a few pointers, which will hopefully help keep you alive. I would add more, but I just heard a thump from outside and the lights wet out, so I need to go check the generator. Don’t worry, I’ll be right back.

*I don’t really know if that’s true, but it seems logical.
** This doesn’t work if you live in Japan and your problem is a giant, rampaging lizard.
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