Hiatus

We'll be taking a break from our four weekly blogs, The Overnight Bestseller, Behind the Walls of Nightmare, Open Investigations (Goodreads), and Writing in Retirement (Goodreads). We expect to be back in the fall with lots of news for our readers.

We'll continue to post reviews as part of our commitment to introduce new works to our readers.

Thanks to all of you who support us by following our blogs.

A Buffoon for All Seasons

I expect I'm not alone in finding real-life horror in the fact that the ultimate 21st century buffoon, Donald Trump, is actually leading all other candidates for the Republican presidential nomination. It is summertime, after all, not April Fool's Day.

The Daily Beast points out that Trump loves to compare himself to the ultimate showman, P.T. Barnum. But  Trump's politics bear no comparison to those of Barnum, who served two terms in the Connecticut legislature and one as the mayor of Bridgeport.

Contrary to Trump, Barnum was not a reactionary, but an individual who supported Abraham Lincoln's nomination as a presidential candidate and welcomed an end to slavery. He in fact joined the Connecticut legislature so that he could ratify the Thirteenth Amendment banning slavery. Later Barnum was also a supporter of the largely unpopular cause of female suffrage.

As the writer of the article states:

Clearly–Donald Trump take note–biography is not destiny; previous jobs don’t determine political positions; and egotism need not trump humanism. P.T. Barnum was as self-absorbed and self-aggrandizing as Donald Trump, with an ego as monumental as any of Trump’s towers. But Barnum the pol trumped Trump as a statesman, championing equality and mutual respect. 

For the full text of the article, please click here.

The Horror Writers Association Announces Scholarship Recipients

The Horror Writers Association recently announced the recipients of the HWA Scholarships for 2015.

The recipient of the Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Scholarship established to support underrepresented female horror writers is Thersa Matsuura. Mary Shelley is the author of the classic horror novel Frankenstein.

The recipient of the General Writing Scholarship is Eric Smith, whose work has been featured in horror anthologies.

The recipient of the Poetry Scholarship Award is Michael Tugendhat. I always think of Poe's The Raven when I think of dark poetry and it's good to see that the HWA is keeping this genre alive and well.

Congratulations to the three recipients.

For the article announcing the award recipients, please click here.

Publishing a Book Is an Act of Faith

I've discovered that it's very difficult to publish novels and then wait to see if anyone actually reads them, so I'm pleased that my second book, Fire Whisperer & Circle of Souls: Two Novellas of the Supernatural, has been well-received. It's always a battle getting reviews, and I appreciate when readers take the time to post them. One reader even sent me a personal message telling me how much she enjoyed my writing and encouraging me to continue.

Since everyone is now a potential critic, you're never quite sure what to expect from readers. When I published The Home Child, I did a Goodreads giveaway, which involved providing free copies of the book to the winners as well as incurring the significant mailing costs of Canada Post. I received a two-star rating but no review from the first contest winner to post a rating, so not only was I out $20 for the book and mailing costs, but I had no idea why she didn't like the book. (Fortunately, I have received informative reviews since that time.)

I also discovered a few months after the publication of The Home Child that there was an online pirated version of my novel with more than four hundred downloads for which I received no compensation. That money would have gone a long way in paying for future publications.

My point? Publishing a novel is an act of faith and trust.

You need to love writing to keep moving on.

Cruisin' with the Dead

 Can't get enough of The Walking Dead? Thinking of taking a cruise next winter?

The Norwegian Pearl will sail from Miami to the Bahamas on January 15-18, 2016, for three zombie-filled days of fun on the "Walker-Stalker Cruise". Passengers will be able to interact with cast members from The Walking Dead, including Norman Reedus, Chandler Riggs, and Emily Kinney, get photos and autographs, and attend question and answer sessions. There will be costume contests, theme nights, and lots of other fun.

To read the Fox News article, which includes links to the YouTube video and registration website, please click here.


(Many thanks to my niece Carrie for bringing this article to my attention.)

The Original Gong Show?

Something in my nature always makes me want to cheer for the underdog so it was with interest that I read an article about the Cherry Sisters on NPR. I had never heard of them before, but apparently they were a vaudeville act in the early 20th century that was synonymous with "bad". According to the NPR article, "[t]heir variety act included original music, bass drum thumping, poetry, mouth harp playing, inspirational recitations, essay reading, fake hypnosis and other artistic expressions. And the audience responded to the whole shebang by hurling vegetables, shouting interjections and behaving rudely." The reviews of their performances were so bad, in fact, that the Cherry Sisters sued some newspapers for defamation.

But, in spite of everything, they continued to draw in audiences, and Oscar Hammerstein himself arranged for their debut performance in New York.

Were the sisters really playing on how bad they were? That's one school of thought--that being really bad was their "hook." The other is that the sisters were naive and actually believed in their talent. As they wrote in response to a particularly scathing review: "Although we have the best act in vaudeville and are the best drawing card on the stage, we have no swelled head, as some others have ... We have had more knocking since we went into the theatrical business than any act in the history of the world."

For the NPR article, please click here.

Horror for a Good Cause

Scares that Care! Inc. is a charitable organization that donates its proceeds in support of sick children and their families. It is comprised solely of volunteers.

From July 24 - July 26, 2015, the organization will be hosting a horror convention in Williamsburg, Virginia. Similar to ComicCon, the convention will feature a number of celebrities, as well as vendors, and attendees can dress up as their favorite characters. (Please see the weapons policy.)

There is a full schedule of events including seminars, discussions, author readings, makeup wars, and a filmfest. For the complete schedule, please click here.

If you're a horror fan--and who isn't?--this is an ideal way to support a good cause and have fun doing it!

The Enduring Wonder of Alice

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, which continues to endure in popularity. The Washington Post favorably reviews a new biography of Lewis Carroll entitled The Story of Alice: Lewis Carroll and the Secret History of Wonderland by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst.

The biography sounds like an intriguing and well-written history of Carroll's life and his works.  For example, we learn that Carroll was interested in the paranormal and that he founded the Royal Society for Psychical Research in England.

The book also provides information on Alice Liddell, the child for whom the Alice books were written, as well as tracing the growth of the Alice "industry" since Lewis Carroll's death.

For the full text of the review, please click here.

Douglas-Fairhurst's biography of Carroll is available through Amazon.

Fire Whisperer & Circle of Souls: Two Novellas of the Supernatural

The Plaid Raccoon Press is pleased to announce the publication of Fire Whisperer & Circle of Souls: Two Novellas of the Supernatural  by Lynn L. Clark. It is now in paperback and can be ordered from Amazon.com, and will be available in electronic format very shortly. Like The Home Child, the new book is set in eastern Ontario and is supernatural fiction interwoven with historical details.

Here are brief synopses of the two novellas:

"Fire Whisperer" - Injured in a hotel fire, Keva Tait experiences auditory and visual hallucinations and is diagnosed with schizophrenia. But is this illness really at the root of her constant encounters with a young, dark-haired woman and an elder who materializes at night on her bed? With the tenth anniversary of the fire looming, Keva wants to take back her life by confronting what really happened when she was seventeen years old.

"Circle of Souls" - A young woman doing research at a small museum in Ottawa is almost pushed down a set of stairs. Her sister-in-law, who restores fossils at a museum of natural history, is touched by an unseen presence. A videographer glimpses unsettling images in his work. A paranormal team leader encounters the inexplicable as he investigates an old mill. A student working part time at an old jail experiences the despair of its former inmates. All of these locations are said to be haunted, but who exactly is the ghost? Or are there many ghosts seeking human intervention?


Fire Whisperer & Circle of Souls: Two Novellas of the Supernatural is currently a Goodreads Giveaway and is also listed in the Early Reviewers Program of LibraryThing.

If you are a reviewer of supernatural fiction and would like an electronic copy of the book for review purposes, please send an e-mail request to llclark136@hotmail.com.

Stay tuned for additional updates!

A Ghost Town with a Ghost

CBS News reports that the town of Johnsonville, Connecticut, is once again up for sale. The asking price is $2.4 million.

The former mill town was once the hub of the twine industry and a major supplier for the fishing industry and both world wars. With industry growth and competition, however, the mill ceased to operate and the village of Johnsonville was eventually deserted.

In the 1960s the town was purchased by Ray Schmitt, an eccentric millionaire and collector of Victorian memorabilia, who planned to restore Johnsonville as a tourist site, but faced numerous delays, including the mill being struck by lightning, and died in 1998 before he was able to complete the restoration.

The town was eventually purchased in 2001 (prior to the events of 9/11) by a hotel group who wanted to turn it into a residential community for people over the age of 55. The subsequent financial crises and economic recession put an end to these plans, and Johnsonville remains a ghost town.

According to local folklore, this ghost town has its own ghost: supposedly that of Ray Schmitt, "who has remained on the property he worked so hard to develop, unable to put it to rest."

For the full text of the article please click here.

New TV Series Based on Romero's Empire of the Dead

 

If you're a fan of George A. Romero and the cult classic Night of the Living Dead, you'll be pleased to know that a television series based on his Marvel graphic novel series Empire of the Dead is forthcoming. The graphic novel has not only zombies, but vampires. Romero is co-writer and co-executive producer for the new series.

It will be interesting to see how this new series compares to The Walking Dead, of which Romero has been outwardly dismissive.

Stay tuned for more information...

(Source: Horror News Network:  http://www.horrornewsnetwork.net/articles/12930-george-a-romero-s-empire-of-the-dead-getting-tv-series-cannes?Itemid=101)

The Latest from Jeffrey Deaver

  It's been quite awhile since I read a Jeffrey Deaver novel, and I was pleased to see that Kathryn Dance is the protagonist in his latest book, Solitude Creek, because I especially like her character. This is the fourth novel in the Kathryn Dance series.

The novel has an interesting premise: create an imaginary threat and watch as people are panicked into contributing to their own deaths. This is how the villain, Antioch March, operates.

The novel begins with a stampede in a roadhouse caused by someone yelling "Fire" and soon "[n]o one attending a play, sitting in a movie theater, dining in a restaurant or stepping into an elevator is safe" as March plans more attacks.

To read an excerpt from Solitude Creek, please click here.

 

2014 Bram Stoker Award Winners

In case you missed the announcement this weekend at the 25th World Horror Convention, here are the Bram Stoker Award winners for 2014 as chosen by the Horror Writers Association:

Lifetime Achievement Award

Jack Ketchum and Tanith Lee

Superior Achievement in a Novel

Blood Kin by Steve Rasnic Tem (Solaris Books)

Superior Achievement in a First Novel

Mr. Wicker by Maria Alexander (Raw Dog Screaming Press)

Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel

Phoenix Island by John Dixon (Simon & Schuster/Gallery Books)

Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel

Bad Blood by Jonathan Maberry (Dark Horse Books)

Superior Achievement in Long Fiction

"Fishing for Dinosaurs” by Joe R. Lansdale (Limbus, Inc., Book II, JournalStone)

Superior Achievement in Short Fiction

“The Vaporization Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family” by Usman T. Malik (Qualia Nous, Written Backwards) and “Ruminations” by Rena Mason (Qualia Nous, Written Backwards) - This was a tie.

Superior Achievement in a Screenplay

The Babadook by Jennifer Kent (Causeway Films)

Superior Achievement in an Anthology

Fearful Symmetries edited by Ellen Datlow (ChiZine Publications)

Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection

Soft Apocalypses by Lucy A. Snyder (Raw Dog Screaming Press)

Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction

Shooting Yourself in the Head For Fun and Profit: A Writer’s Survival Guide by Lucy A. Snyder (Post Mortem Press)

Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection

Forgiving Judas by Tom Piccirilli (Crossroad Press)

The Specialty Press Award

Brett Savory and Sandra Kasturi of ChiZine Publications



Congratulations to all those honored for their achievements.

HWA Mentor Program

If you're new to the horror genre, you might be interested in the Mentor Program offered by the Horror Writers Association. Under this program, HWA matches up new and aspiring writers with experienced and knowledgeable members who are already widely published. The program not only supports the writing process, but also provides advice on how to prepare query letters and submissions.

To join the Mentor Program, you have to be a paid-up member of the HWA. You can then contact the Chairperson and provide details of your membership status, information on your writing/publications, and an explanation of what you are looking for in a mentor. Because of the popularity of the program, you may be placed on a waiting list until a mentor can be identified for you.

For further information, please visit the HWA website at http://horrorwritersassociation.info/ and choose Our Mentoring Program under "for writers" in the right-hand menu.

Revisiting Another Master of Horror: Mary Shelley

Boris Karloff as the Monster

Amazingly, Mary Shelley began writing Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus when she was nineteen years old, and it was published anonymously when she was twenty-one. The novel was influenced by the themes of the day, including experiments in galvanization: the use of electricity to re-animate the dead. John Milton's poem “Paradise Lost”, quoted by Shelley in the epigraph, also provides an important context in terms of the religious overtones of the novel and man's struggle to come to terms with his Creator. The sub-title “The Modern Prometheus” is also significant in terms of the Greek myth of Prometheus, whose attempt to enlighten mankind through the introduction of fire, often associated with scientific enlightenment, results in his punishment by the gods and his perpetual agony. In fact, the depth of background knowledge and reading that the original novel implies is quite astounding for someone so young.

 

We commonly associate Frankenstein's creation—who has no name in the novel—with repugnancy and horror. In the original novel, however, there are many other themes at play, including over-reaching ambition, moral ambiguity, guilt, responsibility, and abandonment. One is struck by the sorrow and regret in its tone as the narration unfolds. Victor Frankenstein is ambitious beyond reason, striving to be God-like in recreating life. It is the central irony of the novel that his monster destroys everyone Frankenstein loves, leaving him as empty, lifeless, and abandoned as his creation.

 

The Legacy of Frankenstein

 

Stephen King in his examination of horror fiction entitled Danse Macabre talks of the pervasive influence of the novel on the horror genre. There have been countless derivatives in various forms. An early stage version was produced as early as 1826, and theatric productions continue to this day. There have been innumerable film versions, perhaps the most memorable of monsters being portrayed by Boris Karloff, whose performance captured the creature's sorrow and alienation. The modern horror novelist Dean Koontz has written a series of novels based on the Frankenstein theme.

 

There have also been numerous comic tributes from Mel Brooks' classic, Young Frankenstein, to Tim Burton's Frankenweenie.   

 

Internet Resources

 

The novel is now in the public domain and is offered as a free download on many internet sites for new generations of readers to discover. For a list of Mary Shelley and Frankenstein sites, please see http://www.marywshelley.com/sources/mary-shelley-and-frankenstein-sites/.

 

 

(Adapted from an original post dated March 12, 2013)

The Ultimate Haunted House?

Winchester Mystery House

Haunted houses are a popular feature of horror novels and films, and the stories behind the Winchester Mystery House are especially intriguing. The house was built without a master plan by its owner, Sara Winchester, who was the heir to the Winchester Repeating Rifle Company fortune. 

According to popular belief, Sara Winchester consulted a medium after the early deaths of her child and husband and was advised that she needed to move West and build a house for herself and the spirits of those killed by the Winchester rifle. The construction had to be non-stop: otherwise she would die. Another version of this story is that the medium advised her to build the house in order to thwart the evil spirits that killed her husband and child. This version of the story might account for the maze-like construction of the house and its many dead ends to trick the spirits and keep them from finding her.

Mrs. Winchester moved to California from Connecticut and purchased an unfinished farmhouse in northern California. Work began immediately on the house by 13 workers, who labored night and day for almost 38 years. Construction only stopped upon her death at the age of 83.

Today the house is a major tourist attraction. Among its features are the following:

• 160 rooms
• 47 fireplaces
• 10,0000 windows
• 17 chimneys

There are stairs and windows opening onto walls, as well as a staircase leading to a ceiling, and doors and staircases leading nowhere. The number “13” (perhaps intended to ward off spirits) is prominent in the design of the house. (The newsletter for the mystery house is called The Thirteenth Hour.) As well, there is a séance room with one entrance, three exits, and an eight-foot drop through a secret door to a kitchen below. Visitors are warned to stay with the tour group or risk getting lost for hours in the labyrinth of the house.

Visitors have reported cold spots, and one of the long-time restoration workers reported seeing an apparition inside the house. One psychic stated that he could hear ongoing sawing and hammering by the 13 dead laborers in the other world as they continued to build the house.

For the website of the Winchester Mystery House, see www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/, which provides a detailed history of the house, as well as an explanation of the “13” numerology in its design.‎ 

For a YouTube video by the Travel Channel on the world's creepiest destinations, visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dy0TnZ_vpk. (Both sites, as well as Wikipedia, were used as sources for this post.) There are numerous photographs and other YouTube videos online for you to explore.

Happy touring, but don't get lost!

(Reprinted from the Behind the Walls of Nightmare blog post of June 11, 2013)

Horror Poetry for National Poetry Month

In celebration of National Poetry Month, the Horror Writers Association is hosting its second horror poetry contest known as the HWA Horror Poetry Showcase. It's open to everyone, and the last day for submissions is April 30, 2015.

For submission guidelines, please click here.

A panel of judges will select four poems to be published on the HWA website. At the judges' discretion, the HWA may also publish an electronic chapbook of qualifying poems.

To read last year's winning poems on the HWA website (under April: Poetry), please click here.

Revisiting the Works of Edgar Allan Poe

From time to time, we like to re-print posts that have been extremely popular in this blog. At one point, we ran a "masters of horror" series which included such names as Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker. By far, the most popular of these posts was the one on Edgar Allan Poe. So if you missed it the first time, here you go.

Poe's Writing

Although Poe was much maligned during his  lifetime and immediately following his death at age forty, he is now known for his profound influence on horror, science fiction, and detective fiction. Poe's short stories and poems are in the Gothic tradition, but he goes far beyond Gothic themes and conventions to focus on the psychology of fear: what Poe refers to as “the terror … of the soul”.

Poe is also a master of dramatic irony and first person narrative, which leads to a form of “dawning” horror as the reader uncovers the protagonist's intent prior to the victim. In his short story “The Cask of Amontillado,” the reader discovers with horror, as the story unfolds, that the narrator Montresor actually intends to "bury" Fortunato alive inside the wall in his cellar. In “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the unreliable narrator tries to convince us of his innocence and sanity while recounting his murder of an old man.

Poe's use of atmosphere and symbolism is also a hallmark of his writing. In his masterpiece “The Fall of the House of Usher,” the house itself becomes alive as a character in the short story, and its decay and destruction go hand in hand with the spiritual dissolution of its owner, Roderick Usher. In “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the heart which the narrator hears beating beneath the floorboards is a manifestation of his own guilt. In his poem “The Raven”—which many readers may now, for better or for worse, identify with The Simpsons parody in the Halloween special—the bird becomes a personification of loss, sorrow, and premature death, which are recurrent themes in Poe's work, frequently associated by critics with the early loss of his own wife to tuberculosis.

Poe's Legacy

Poe's influence on modern horror in literature and films is extensive. In literature, think of such novels as Peter Straub's Ghost Story and Stephen King's The Shining and Pet Sematary, and in films think of the works of Alfred Hitchcock and Roger Corman.

In popular music, Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination were the inspiration for the first concept album of the same name by Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson joining forces as the Alan Parsons Project. Released in 1976, the album features terrific vocals by Arthur Brown ("The Tell-Tale Heart") and John Miles ("The Cask of Amontillado"), among others.

Poe is also regarded as the father of modern detective fiction through such short stories as “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and “The Purloined Letter,” which influenced Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and laid the groundwork for subsequent generations of fictional sleuths. In fact, the annual award to mystery writers of excellence is the Edgar award.

Poe's detective Dupin uses a technique he refers to as "ratiocination," in which he applies his considerable powers of reason and analysis to the solution of the mysteries. (Dare we say that Sherlock Holmes follows in Dupin's footsteps?)

Poe also had a strong influence on science fiction, including the works of H.P. Lovecraft, Jules Verne, and H.G. Wells.

Why We Admire Poe's Work

We admire Poe's story-telling skills and the psychology of his stories: the theme of terror as a projection of one's inner fears and turmoil.  "The Masque of the Red Death" and "The Cask of Amontillado" are two of the greatest horror stories ever written. As allegories that explore the fear of death, the futility of denying our mortality, and the terror that waits for us in the dark, they cannot be matched.
  
Internet Resources

If you're interested in [re]acquainting yourself with the works of Poe, there are many Internet sources available. The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore at http://www.eapoe.org/ has an extensive list of his works, writings on Poe, and related websites. You can also visit http://poestories.com/stories.php to access his short stories and other works.

Fear the Walking Dead

The title of The Walking Dead companion series was announced this past Friday to many boos and hisses. The title is Fear the Walking Dead, and tv.com has suggested forty-three alternate titles that would have been better. (The working title of the new show had in fact been Cobalt, as I indicated in an earlier post.)

The companion series has already been signed up for two seasons and will start airing in late summer 2015.

If you're a Walking Dead fan, you'll probably be more concerned with the quality of the scripts and acting in the new series and less with its title. I'm probably not the only one who thinks the quality of the scripts in the original series has deteriorated since the show first aired. In my opinion, the show has become so focused on "survival of the fittest" themes that the larger issues of coping with widespread devastation while maintaining a semblance of humanity and attempting to rebuild society seem to have gone by the wayside.

And speaking of survival of the fittest, am I the only one who thinks that very strong characters have been eliminated from the show while very weak characters remain? (I won't name names, but I'm sure you can single out the ones.)

All said, I'm still looking forward to the new series, mainly because it will be a chance at a fresh start.

Themes of the 2015 World Horror Convention

This is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Wold Horror Convention to be held on May 7-10 in Atlantic, Georgia. These are the seven themes of the 2015 event:

• The Weird South:  "Why does the South provide such a rich playground for authors and filmmakers exploring the darker side of humanity?" 
• Pushing the Diaspora Darkly: Atlantic was the city at the centre of the civil rights movement. The convention will look at "diversity and an emerging global view of horror as it moves into the 21st century with a new generation of writers from different cultural backgrounds." 
• Terrifying Tropes and Deadly Definitions: "Classic monsters will still get their due, but we’ll be looking for new angles to challenge and inspire, as well as exploring sub-genre definitions and cross-pollination with other genres."
• YA Rocks: Why is horror so popular for young adults? 
• The State of Horror, 1991: A look back at the founding of the WHC and the hottest horror topics and authors at that time.
• The Art of Fear: An examination of the "latest trends in horror art, comics, artist spotlights, the business of art, and other media-related programming."
• The Business of Horror: How "to maximize the latest developments in marketing and publishing."

For more information, please visit http://www.whc2015.org/ and http://www.worldhorrorconvention.com/.

More New Spring Horror Releases

As promised in last week's post, here are some other horror books to look forward to:


March

Ellen Datlow (ed.) – The Doll Collection 

An illustrated anthology featuring all-original dark tales of dolls from bestselling and award-winning authors, compiled by one of the top editors in the field. Among the writers featured are
Joyce Carol Oates, Seanan McGuire, Carrie Vaughn, Pat Cadigan, Tim Lebbon, Richard Kadrey, Genevieve Valentine, and Jeffrey Ford.


April

Joe Hill – The Fireman

In a world overtaken by a deadly and dramatic new virus, the protagonist is determined to live long enough to deliver her baby. But when it only takes a spark to start a deadly blaze, she’s going to need some help from the mysterious fireman....


May

Sarah Lotz – Day Four

Four days into a five-day singles cruise on the Gulf of Mexico, the aging ship Beautiful Dreamer stops dead in the water. With no electricity and no cellular signals, the passengers and crew have no way to call for help. But everyone is certain that rescue teams will come looking for them soon. All they have to do is wait.
That is, until the toilets stop working and the food begins to run out. When the body of a woman is discovered in her cabin the passengers start to panic. There’s a murderer on board the Beautiful Dreamer… and maybe something worse.

June

Christopher Golden – Tin Men

Economies are collapsing, environmental disasters are widespread, and war is the backdrop to life. In response the military has developed a force of elite soldiers to keep the peace. A force like nothing seen before … code-named Tin Man, soldiers are virtually transported to inhabit robot frames in war-torn countries.


Paul Tremblay – A Head Full of Ghosts 

The lives of a normal suburban New England family are torn apart when the fourteen-year-old daughter begins to display signs of acute schizophrenia. To her parents’ despair, the doctors are unable to stop her descent into madness. As their stable home devolves into a house of horrors, they reluctantly turn to a local Catholic priest for help....


Thanks to A Fantastical Librarian blog for the selection of new horror books. If you are interested in new science fiction releases, there are also many listed on this site.

Upcoming Horror Fiction

 Here are some upcoming horror novels for spring and summer that you might like to check out.

Within These Walls by Ania Ahlborn - This supernatural thriller questions how far an individual would go for success, and what  he would be capable of if the promise of forever was real. (Release Date: April 21)

Also by the same author, Brother, the tale of a teenager trying to break free of his family's deeply-disturbing traditions that involve missing young girls and screams in the night. (Release Date: September 8).

Deep in the heart of Appalachia stands a crooked farmhouse miles from any road. The Morrows keep to themselves, and it’s served them well so far. When girls go missing off the side of the highway, the cops don’t knock on their door. Which is a good thing, seeing as to what’s buried in the Morrows’ backyard.

But nineteen-year-old Michael Morrow isn’t like the rest of his family. He doesn’t take pleasure in the screams that echo through the trees. Michael pines for normalcy, and he’s sure that someday he’ll see the world beyond West Virginia. - See more at: http://books.simonandschuster.co.uk/Brother/Ania-Ahlborn/9781476783734#sthash.b1oKsOJ3.dpuf

Dawn of the Dead by George A. Romero and Susanna Sparrow - This novel is based on the cult movie classic of the same name and is being re-issued with an introduction by Simon Pegg. Zombies have overpowered the living and ravaged the world. Society has collapsed as humans race to save themselves. There are four survivors with nowhere to hide who must face a final showdown with these monsters. (Release Date: June 2)

[Adapted from a post on The Baryon Review (Barry R. Hunter) and supplemented by book descriptions from Barnes & Noble]

Stay tuned for more new releases next week!:

Bram Stoker Award® Nominees

In case you missed it, the Horror Writers Association announced the final ballot results for the Bram Stoker Awards® on February 24:

Superior Achievement in a Novel

Craig DiLouie – Suffer the Children (Gallery Books of Simon & Schuster)
Patrick Freivald – Jade Sky (JournalStone)
Chuck Palahniuk – Beautiful You (Jonathan Cape, Vintage/Penguin Random House UK)
Christopher Rice – The Vines (47North)
Steve Rasnic Tem – Blood Kin (Solaris Books)

Superior Achievement in a First Novel

Maria Alexander – Mr. Wicker (Raw Dog Screaming Press)
J.D. Barker – Forsaken (Hampton Creek Press)
David Cronenberg – Consumed (Scribner)
Michael Knost – Return of the Mothman (Woodland Press)
Josh Malerman – Bird Box (Harper Collins)

Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel

Jake Bible – Intentional Haunting (Permuted Press)
John Dixon – Phoenix Island (Simon & Schuster/Gallery Books)
Kami Garcia – Unmarked (The Legion Series Book 2) (Little Brown Books for Young Readers)
Tonya Hurley – Passionaries (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
Peter Adam Salomon – All Those Broken Angels (Flux)

Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel

Emily Carroll – Through the Woods (Margaret K. McElderry Books)
Joe Hill – Locke and Key, Vol. 6 (IDW Publishing)
Joe R. Lansdale and Daniele Serra – I Tell You It’s Love (Short, Scary Tales Publications)
Jonathan Maberry – Bad Blood (Dark Horse Books)
Paul Tobin – The Witcher (Dark Horse Books)

Superior Achievement in Long Fiction

Taylor Grant – “The Infected” (Cemetery Dance #71) (Cemetery Dance)
Eric J. Guignard – “Dreams of a Little Suicide” (Hell Comes to Hollywood II: Twenty-Two More Tales of Tinseltown Terror (Volume 2)) (Big Time Books)
Joe R. Lansdale – “Fishing for Dinosaurs” (Limbus, Inc., Book II) (JournalStone)
Jonathan Maberry – “Three Guys Walk into a Bar” (Limbus, Inc., Book II) (JournalStone)
Joe McKinney – “Lost and Found” (Limbus, Inc., Book II) (JournalStone)

Superior Achievement in Short Fiction

Hal Bodner – “Hot Tub” (Hell Comes to Hollywood II: Twenty-Two More Tales of Tinseltown Terror (Volume 2)) (Big Time Books)
Sydney Leigh – “Baby’s Breath” (Bugs: Tales That Slither, Creep, and Crawl) (Great Old Ones Publishing)
Usman T. Malik – “The Vaporization Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family” (Qualia Nous) (Written Backwards)
Rena Mason – “Ruminations” (Qualia Nous) (Written Backwards)
John Palisano – “Splinterette” (Widowmakers: A Benefit Anthology of Dark Fiction) (Widowmaker Press)
Damien Angelica Walters – “The Floating Girls: A Documentary” (Jamais Vu, Issue Three) (Post Mortem Press)

Superior Achievement in a Screenplay

Scott M. Gimple – The Walking Dead: “The Grove”, episode 4:14 (AMC)
Jennifer Kent – The Babadook (Causeway Films)
John Logan – Penny Dreadful: “Séance” (Desert Wolf Productions/Neal Street Productions)
Steven Moffat – Doctor Who: “Listen” (British Broadcasting Corporation)
James Wong – American Horror Story: Coven: “The Magical Delights of Stevie Nicks” (FX Network)

Superior Achievement in an Anthology

Michael Bailey – Qualia Nous (Written Backwards)
Jason V Brock – A Darke Phantastique (Cycatrix Press)
Ellen Datlow – Fearful Symmetries (ChiZine Publications)
Chuck Palahniuk, Richard Thomas, and Dennis Widmyer – Burnt Tongues (Medallion Press)
Brett J. Talley – Limbus, Inc., Book II (JournalStone)

Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection

Stephen Graham Jones – After the People Lights Have Gone Off (Dark House Press)
John R. Little – Little by Little (Bad Moon Books)
Helen Marshall – Gifts for the One Who Comes After (ChiZine Publications)
Lucy Snyder – Soft Apocalypses (Raw Dog Screaming Press)
John F.D. Taff – The End in All Beginnings (Grey Matter Press)

Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction

Jason V Brock – Disorders of Magnitude (Rowman & Littlefield)
S.T. Joshi – Lovecraft and a World in Transition (Hippocampus Press)
Leslie S. Klinger – The New Annotated H.P. Lovecraft (Liveright Publishing Corp., a division of W.W. Norton & Co.)
Joe Mynhardt and Emma Audsley – Horror 101: The Way Forward (Crystal Lake Publishing)
Lucy Snyder – Shooting Yourself in the Head For Fun and Profit: A Writer’s Survival Guide (Post Mortem Press)

Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection

Robert Payne Cabeen – Fearworms: Selected Poems (Fanboy Comics)
Corrinne De Winter and Alessandro Manzetti – Venus Intervention (Kipple Officina Libraria)
Tom Piccirilli – Forgiving Judas (Crossroad Press)
Marge Simon and Mary Turzillo – Sweet Poison (Dark Renaissance Books)
Stephanie Wytovich – Mourning Jewelry (Raw Dog Screaming Press)

The presentation of the Bram Stoker Awards® will occur during the World Horror Convention in Atlanta, Georgia, on the evening of Saturday, May 9, 2015. Tickets to the banquet and the convention are on sale to the public at www.whc2015.org. The awards presentation will also be live-streamed online.

It's Raining . . . Frogs

 

I figured it was time to take a break from evil dolls, and look at other horrors that could befall humanity. The following is adapted from a previous post on Behind the Walls of Nightmare:

It may rain cats and dogs only metaphorically, but there have been numerous documented cases of frog and fish rainfall. Cases of such rainfalls, often associated in the popular mind with Biblical curses, have been reported frequently in modern times.

 Here are some examples:

• In 1977, thousands of frogs fell from the sky in Brignoles, France.

• On June 7, 2005, thousands of frogs rained on Odzaci, a small town in northwestern Serbia.

• At the end of February 2010, residents of Lajamanu, a small Australian town, saw hundreds of spangled perch fall from the sky.

• The United Kingdom is especially prone to falling frogs, having experienced a number of episodes, the most recent being in Bromley, England.

Many scientists believe that tornadic waterspouts—tornadoes that form over land and travel over water—may be responsible for frog and fish rainfalls. Other scientists theorize that any unusually powerful updraft could lift small organisms or organic material into the sky during a storm. (An updraft is a wind current caused by warm air from high pressure areas near the earth rising into cooler, low-pressure areas in the atmosphere.)

Of course, if you're Stephen King, the frogs have teeth and appear in an annual rainfall to prey upon their skeptics... (See his short story “Rainy Season” in Nightmares and Dreamscapes.)

If you're interested in taking a look at frog and fish rainfall, there are numerous YouTube videos that you can google on this subject.

Annabelle the Doll

Annabelle in the Warren's Occult Museum in Connecticut

If you've watched The Conjuring and its spinoff/prequel Annabelle, you've heard of Annabelle the Doll.

Annabelle is a rag doll rather than the porcelain doll depicted in the two movies. It originally belonged to a nursing student named Donna--a gift from her mother. The doll was reputed to move about in her apartment and to change its poses, as well as leaving cryptic notes saying HELP on pieces of parchment.

When Donna came home to her apartment one day and found drops of blood on the doll's hand, she called upon the services of a psychic. The medium advised Donna that the doll was haunted by the spirit of a dead child named Annabelle Higgins (hence the name given to the doll).

When the doll later became violent towards her roommate's boyfriend Lou, Donna contacted demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren. They advised her that the doll was not inhabited by the spirit of Annabelle Higgins, but was in fact possessed by a devil. At Donna's request, they removed it from her apartment.

The doll now resides in an occult museum owned by the Warrens. According to Ed Warren, Annabelle was responsible for the death of a young man who visited the museum and taunted the doll, daring it to do its worst to him. The man died three hours later in a motorcycle crash.

There's lot of reading/viewing material on Annabelle, including videotaped reenactments of its history on YouTube.

To learn more of the doll's story, please click here and here. And you can also contact the Warren's Occult Museum through Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Warrens-Occult-Museum/126070474135029.

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Robert the Haunted Doll

I had heard of Chucky, the evil doll of the Child's Play franchise, but until I was doing research for my second supernatural novel, I wasn't aware that Robert the Doll was in fact the inspiration for Chucky.

Robert is a hand-crafted doll made around the turn of the 20th century and named for Robert Eugene Otto, to whom the doll belonged until his death in 1974. As a child, Otto invested the doll with a human identity, often talked to him, and blamed the doll when he was accused of misbehavior. According to Otto's parents, the doll talked back to their son, giggled, and was capable of movement. After Otto's death, the doll remained in the house, and the new owner took Robert with her when she moved six years later. In 1994 she donated the doll to the Fort East Martello Museum in Key West, Florida, saying that the doll was haunted. (She too had observed the doll's ability to move from room to room.)

(Source: http://www.kwahs.org/exhibitions/online-exhibitions/robert-the-doll/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_%28doll%29.)

Robert the Doll now has his own website at http://www.robertthedoll.org/, Twitter account at https://twitter.com/Robertthedoll, and Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/robert.thedoll.5. You can also send him an e-mail at robert@robertthedoll.org.

And if you'd like your own Robert doll, you can buy one from the Key West museum where Robert currently resides.

Next week's post ... Annabelle the Doll


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robert@robertthedoll.org

robert@robertthedoll.org

Robert Eugene Otto

Robert Eugene Otto

Robert Eugene Otto

Afterlife: The Series

       
If you're a fan of Andrew Lincoln (Rick in The Walking Dead), you might also like to check out Afterlife, a psychological and supernatural British TV drama  in which he plays a leading role. The series is superbly acted, but despite its critical and popular acclaim, it was unfortunately not renewed past its second season.
 
Aterlife is the story of a university professor, Dr. Robert Bridge (played by Lincoln), who has lost his young son. His son's death has led to his divorce and torn a seemingly irreparable hole in his life. Bridge is a skeptic who views psychics as unscrupulous fakes that give false hope to the living while draining their financial resources. Then he comes up against what appears to be the genuine article--Alison Mundy, brilliantly played by Lesley Sharp--who would like nothing more than to be freed from her ability to see and communicate with the spirits of the dead, including Bridge's son.


Of course, the first thing you need to adjust to in watching Afterlife is Andrew Lincoln's native British accent, which one tends to forget because of how well he performs his American drawl in The Walking Dead.

Afterlife is available through Amazon. 

Preliminary Ballot Results for the 2014 Bram Stoker Awards

The preliminary ballot results for the Bram Stoker Awards have been announced:


Superior Achievement in a Novel

Tim Burke – The Flesh Sutra (NobleFusion Press)
Adam Christopher – The Burning Dark (Tor Books)
Michaelbrent Collings – This Darkness Light (self-published)
Lawrence C. Connolly – Vortex (Fantasist Enterprises)
Craig DiLouie – Suffer the Children (Gallery Books of Simon & Schuster)
Patrick Freivald – Jade Sky (JournalStone)
Chuck Palahniuk – Beautiful You (Jonathan Cape, Vintage/Penguin Random House UK)
Christopher Rice – The Vines (47North)
Brett J. Talley – The Reborn (JournalStone)
Steve Rasnic Tem – Blood Kin (Solaris Books)


Superior Achievement in a First Novel

Maria Alexander – Mr. Wicker (Raw Dog Screaming Press)
J.D. Barker – Forsaken (Hampton Creek Press)
Janice Gable Bashman – Predator (Month9Books)
David Cronenberg – Consumed (Scribner)
Michael Knost – Return of the Mothman (Woodland Press)
Daniel Levine – Hyde (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Josh Malerman – Bird Box (Harper Collins)
Whitney Miller – The Violet Hour (Flux)
Chantal Noordeloos – Angel Manor (Horrific Tales Publishing)
C.J. Waller – Predator X (Severed Press)


Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel

Ari Berk – Lych Way (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
Jake Bible – Intentional Haunting (Permuted Press)
Ilsa J. Bick – White Space (Egmont)
John Dixon – Phoenix Island (Simon & Schuster/Gallery Books)
Kami Garcia – Unmarked (The Legion Series Book 2) (Little Brown Books for Young Readers)
S.E. Green – Killer Instinct (Simon & Schuster/Simon Pulse)
Tonya Hurley – Passionaries (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Micol Ostow – Amity (Egmont)
Peter Adam Salomon – All Those Broken Angels (Flux)
Sam Swanson and Araminta Star Matthews – Horror High School: Return of the Loving Dead (Curiosity Quills Press)
Johnny Worthen – Eleanor: Book 1 (The Unseen) (Jolly Fish Press)


Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel

Charles Burns – Sugar Skull
Emily Carroll – Through the Woods
Victor Gischler – Kiss Me Satan
Joe Hill – Locke and Key, Vol. 6
Joe R. Lansdale and Daniele Serra – I Tell You It’s Love (Short, Scary Tales Publications)
Jonathan Maberry – Bad Blood (Dark Horse Books)
Paul Tobin – The Witcher


Superior Achievement in Long Fiction

Michael Bailey – "Dandelion Clocks" (Inkblots and Blood Spots) (Villipede Publications)
Taylor Grant – "The Infected" (Cemetery Dance #71) (Cemetery Dance)
Eric J. Guignard – "Dreams of a Little Suicide" (Hell Comes To Hollywood II: Twenty-Two More Tales Of Tinseltown Terror (Volume 2)) (Big Time Books)
Kate Jonez – Ceremony of Flies (DarkFuse)
Joe R. Lansdale – "Fishing for Dinosaurs" (Limbus, Inc., Book II) (JournalStone)
Jonathan Maberry – "Three Guys Walk Into a Bar" (Limbus, Inc., Book II) (JournalStone)
Joe McKinney – "Lost and Found" (Limbus, Inc., Book II) (JournalStone)
Gene O’Neill – "Ridin the Dawg" (Mia Moja) (Thunderstorm Books)
John F.D. Taff – "The Long Long Breakdown" (The End in all Beginnings) (Grey Matter Press)
Gregor Xane – "The Riggle Twins" (Bad Apples) (Corpus Press)


Superior Achievement in Short Fiction

Dale Bailey – "Sleep Paralysis" (Nightmare Magazine, April 2014) (Nightmare)
Hal Bodner – "Hot Tub" (Hell Comes to Hollywood II) (Big Time Books)
Patrick Freivald – "Trigger Warning" (Demonic Visions Book 4) (Chris Robertson)
Sydney Leigh – "Baby’s Breath" (Bugs: Tales That Slither, Creep, and Crawl) (Great Old Ones Publishing)
Usman T. Malik – "The Vaporization Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family" (Qualia Nous) (Written Backwards)
Alessandro Manzetti – "Nature’s Oddities" (The Shaman: And Other Shadows) (self-published)
Rena Mason – "Ruminations" (Qualia Nous) (Written Backwards)
John Palisano – "Splinterette" (Widowmakers: A Benefit Anthology of Dark Fiction)
Sayuri Ueda – "The Street of Fruiting Bodies" (Phantasm Japan) (Haikasoru, an imprint of VIZ Media, LLC)
Genevieve Valentine – "A Dweller in Amenty" (Nightmare Magazine, March 2014) (Nightmare)
Damien Angelica Walters – "The Floating Girls: A Documentary" (Jamais Vu, Issue Three) (Post Mortem Press)


Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection

Michael Bailey – Inkblots and Blood Spots (Villipede Publications)
Stephen Graham Jones – After the People Lights Have Gone Off (Dark House Press)
John R. Little – Little by Little (Bad Moon Books)
Helen Marshall – Gifts for the One Who Comes After (ChiZine Publications)
David Sakmyster – Escape Plans (Wordfire Press)
Terrence Scott – The Madeleine Wheel: Playing with Spiders (Amazon)
Lucy Snyder – Soft Apocalypses (Raw Dog Screaming Press)
Robin Spriggs – The Untold Tales of Ozman Droom (Anomalous Books)
John F.D. Taff – The End In All Beginnings (Grey Matter Press)
Alexander Zelenyj – Songs for the Lost (Eibonvale Press)


Superior Achievement in an Anthology

John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey – The End Is Nigh (Broad Reach Publishing)
Michael Bailey – Qualia Nous (Written Backwards)
Jason Brock – A Darke Phantastique (Cycatrix Press)
Ellen Datlow – Fearful Symmetries (ChiZine Publications)
Kate Jonez – Halloween Tales (Omnium Gatherum)
Eric Miller – Hell Comes to Hollywood II (Big Time Books)
Chuck Palahniuk, Richard Thomas, and Dennis Widmyer – Burnt Tongues (Medallion Press)
Brian M. Sammons – The Dark Rites of Cthulhu (April Moon Books)
Brett J. Talley – Limbus, Inc., Book II (JournalStone)
Terry M. West – Journals of Horror: Found Fiction (Pleasant Storm Entertainment)


Superior Achievement in a Screenplay

Scott M. Gimple – The Walking Dead: "The Grove", episode 4:14 (AMC)
James Hawes – Penny Dreadful: "Possession" (Desert Wolf Productions/Neal Street Productions)
Jennifer Kent – The Babadook (Causeway Films)
Alex Kurtzman and Mark Goffman – Sleepy Hollow: “Bad Blood” (Sketch Films/K/O Paper Products/20th Century Fox Television)
John Logan – Penny Dreadful: "Séance" (Desert Wolf Productions/Neal Street Productions)
Greg Mclean and Aaron Sterns – Wolf Creek 2 (Emu Creek Pictures)
Stephen Moffat – Doctor Who: Listen (British Broadcasting Corporation)
Cameron Porsendah – Helix: "Pilot" (Tall Ship Productions/Kaji Productions/Muse Entertainment/Lynda Obst Productions/in association with Sony Pictures Television)
Jack Thomas Smith –Infliction (Fox Trail Productions)
James Wong – American Horror Story: Coven: “The Magical Delights of Stevie Nicks” (FX Network)


Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction

Massimo Berruti, S.T. Joshi, and Sam Gafford – William Hope Hodgson: Voices from the Borderland (Hippocampus Press)
Jason V. Brock – Disorders of Magnitude (Rowman & Littlefield)
Hayley Campbell – The Art of Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins Publishers)
S.T. Joshi – Lovecraft and A World in Transition (Hippocampus Press)
Leslie S. Klinger – The New Annotated H.P. Lovecraft (Liveright Publishing Corp., a division of W.W. Norton & Co.)
Joe Mynhardt and Emma Audsley – Horror 101: The Way Forward (Crystal Lake Publishing)
Robert Damon Schneck – Mrs. Wakeman vs. the Antichrist (Tarcher/Penguin)
Lucy Snyder – Shooting Yourself in the Head For Fun and Profit: A Writer’s Survival Guide (Post Mortem Press)
Tom Weaver, David Schecter, and Steve Kronenberg – The Creature Chronicles: Exploring the Black Lagoon Trilogy (McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers)


Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection

Robert Payne Cabeen – Fearworms: Selected Poems (Fanboy Comics)
G.O. Clark – Gravedigger’s Dance (Dark Renaissance Books)
David E. Cowen – The Madness of Empty Spaces (Weasel Press)
Corrinne De Winter and Alessandro Manzetti – Venus Intervention (Kipple Officina Libraria)
Wade German – Dreams from the Black Nebula (Hippocampus Press)
Tom Piccirilli – Forgiving Judas (Crossroad Press)
Michelle Scalise – The Manufacturer of Sorrow (Eldritch Press)
Marge Simon and Mary Turzillo – Sweet Poison (Dark Renaissance Books)
Tiffany Tang – Creepy Little Death Poems (Dreality Press)
Stephanie Wytovich – Mourning Jewelry (Raw Dog Screaming Press)


Voting members of the Horror Writers Association will have until February 15 to submit a final ballot. The final ballot results will be announced on February 23.

It's great to see some new names in the mix. For further information on the HWA and the history of the Bram Stoker Awards, please see www.horror.org.

Ghosts and History

I discovered when I was writing The Home Child that I enjoy doing research and incorporating this research into a novel--enough to interest readers in the subject matter, but hopefully not enough to overwhelm them with details.

I'm currently working on my second novel, which is based on various sites in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, that are reportedly haunted. An interesting side benefit of researching these sites is learning more of the history of this country and its people. For example. I've learned of the tragedies that befell some of the builders of the Rideau Canal--renowned for being the world's longest skating rink--who were French-Canadians and poor Irishmen from County Cork in Ireland. And I've discovered that such research puts a human face on the historical past.

In addition, I've found out that many of  the ghostly encounters recorded at these sites are scarier than anything I could come up with on my own.

I'll keep you posted on the progress of my second novel. In the meantime, back to my research...

The Ghost Ship of Northumberland Strait

Image courtesy www.phantomship.ca

A previous post on ghost ships in Behind the Walls of Nightmare proved to be extremely popular so I thought readers might enjoy another post on the subject.

One of the most interesting of phantom ships is the ghost ship of Northumberland Strait, a body of water that separates Prince Edward Island from New Brunswick and Nova Scotia on Canada's eastern coast. There have been various sightings of this ghost ship for over 220 years. The ship is said to be a schooner, which is a type of sailing vessel with sails on at least two of its masts. According to various onlookers, the sails burst into flames before their eyes.

There is no predetermined spot where the phantom ship appears, and sightings occur most frequently between September and November, although they have been reported at other times. Because the sightings frequently occur before a northeast wind, local folklore suggests that the ship forewarns of impending storms. The last sighting of the ship was in mid-January 2008.

Because the ship appears to be on fire, there have been attempts to rescue the crew, but the ship always disappears without a trace.

There have been various scientific explanations proposed for the ship and its fiery appearance, including electrical phenomena, moonlight on a fog bank, and a crescent moon setting below the horizon.

Of course, there could also be an element of the supernatural at work...

For the account in the Truro Daily News of the last sighting of the ghost ship, please click here.

(Source: Wikipedia)

The Walking Dead: Los Angeles

If you're a fan of The Walking Dead franchise, you may have followed the buzz for the past two years concerning a proposed "companion" series. The new series, which is set in Los Angeles, is now in production with the working title Cobalt. There is much speculation that the new show will be a prequel showing how the zombie epidemic began. Unlike the CSI and NCIS franchises where actors from the original series appear in special episodes of their spin-offs, it's not expected that Rick and his crew will pop up in the new series--unless they somehow make it out of Georgia.

And if you're anxious to see what happens in Season 5 of The Walking Dead now that Beth ( Emily Kinney) has shared the fate of her screen dad Hershel (Scott Wilson) in being killed off suddenly and violently with a blade, the series resumes on February 8, 2015.