Imaginarium 2012

 The Best Canadian Speculative Writing Anthology

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Ray Wallace

Ray Wallace hails from Brandon, FL, a suburb of Tampa he affectionately refers to as Satan's Spawning Ground. There he writes his fiction and reviews, runs a record label and a recording studio with his brother, and composes electronic music. His stories have appeared in a number of online and print 'zines, including Welcome to Nod, Cthulhu Cultus, Whispers From the Shattered Forum, Bloodfetish, Bloody Muse, Dark Muse, Delirium, and Errata. His madness-inducing tale, One of the Six, took first place in ChiZine's second fiction contest. He also wrote a long-running book review column for Twilight Showcase webzine.

Don't let his boyish good looks fool you. Evil wears many faces.

Check out his work at ChiZine Book Reviews.

Jimmy

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In some ways, Jimmy Hawthorn is a lot like many other high school kids. He’s quiet. Kinda shy around girls. Gets pretty good grades. Likes to play video games. For a while there he had to deal with a bit of bullying until he hit a growth spurt and started lifting weights. He’s never found himself in any real trouble to speak of. No run-ins with the law. Gets along well with his parents and his brother. Yeah, just an average young man from an average family living in an average American town. There is one thing, though, that might not be considered quite so average about Jimmy Hawthorn.

Nightworld

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It's the end of the world as we know it … Repairman Jack's world, that is. After fifteen books in F. Paul Wilson's popular and long running series, which began with The Tomb, we have finally reached the end with a revised edition of Nightworld. An extensively revised edition of Nightworld, according to a forward by the book's author. As I never read the original version, published in the early nineties, I have no idea as to the true extent of the changes the story has undergone.

Horror for Good: a Charitable Anthology Vol. 1

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In the mood to read a good horror anthology? Like to see your money go toward a worthwhile cause? Then do yourself a favour and purchase a copy of Horror For Good. All profits go to amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research. If that's not reason enough, a quick glimpse through the table of contents should seal the deal. It includes stories from a number of authors with whom any fan of horror fiction is sure to be familiar: Joe R. Lansdale, Ramsey Campbell, F. Paul Wilson, Jack Ketchum, Ray Garton, and Laird Barron, just to name a few.

The Red Empire and Other Stories

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A violent thunderstorm, a cop killer on the loose, and an army of genetically modified, giant fire ants; put them all together and what do you have? The Red Empire, the titular tale of Joe McKinney’s short story collection, The Red Empire and Other Stories. Here we follow a number of different characters including a recently widowed young mother and her daughter, the latter temporarily blinded after undergoing a cornea transplant. There’s the aforementioned cop killer who, while being transported to prison, is set free due to a set of very fortunate circumstances.

Zombie Bake-Off

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Stephen Graham Jones is one of those writers I’ve been meaning to read for a while now but haven’t for one reason or another. I guess it comes back to that whole too many books (and authors), too little time thing. So when I was offered a chance to read his latest, Zombie Bake-Off, for review I jumped at it. Was this the book that would put Mr. Jones on my not-to-be-missed list? Only one way to find out...

Shining in Crimson by Robert S. Wilson

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When reviewing a vampire novel, it would be all too easy—and rather tempting—to begin with a lengthy diatribe railing against the current state of vampire fiction, how that damned Stephenie Meyer and her sparkling blood suckers have dragged the genre down from the rather elevated status it once enjoyed. Fun, yes, but not entirely true. The genre had, in fact, found itself riddled with cliches long before The Twilight Saga came along.

Horns by Joe Hill

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News flash! Joe Hill is Stephen King’s son. Yes, that Stephen King. Although, if you’re reading this review, chances are that this isn’t news to you. The secret has been out on Mr. Hill’s real identity for a while now. I guess you have to credit the guy for not coming out of the gate riding his immensely famous father’s coattails. Talk about an in! The truth is that he didn’t need to ride his father’s coattails, nor anybody else’s for that matter.

They Had Goat Heads by D. Harlan Wilson

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Ah, the wonderful world of bizarro fiction. A place where anything is possible. Anything at all. Located in a universe where the laws of physics and the rules of logic have little if any influence. For the uninitiated, an intimidating and often overwhelming place, to be sure. A place where the inexperienced traveler would do well to follow the lead of a tested and sure footed guide. And who better to the lead the way through such a strange and, on occasion, inhospitable land than one who has been there many times before and has returned each time to tell the tale?

Voices from Hades by Jeffrey Thomas

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Welcome to Hades. Again.

Author Jeffrey Thomas is back with a short story collection set in the mythical, nefarious realm previously explored in his novel, LETTERS FROM HADES. Ever wanted to experience the many torments and terrors of Hell without actually dying and going there? Well, here's your chance. And you need not have read the novel that came before to enjoy—if you're the twisted sort of individual who actually enjoys this sort of stuff—the stories presented in this collection.

Vintage Soul

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At a gathering of the city’s oldest and most powerful vampires, high within an ultra-secure skyscraper, a most unusual and terrible crime is perpetrated. An ancient and beautiful vampire named Vanessa is kidnapped from within the midst of the gathering, and the head of security hired to protect those assembled there is found brutally murdered. How such an act could have been committed is a mystery. There is an even bigger mystery concerning the person behind it. Who could possess the skill and cunning to do such a thing? And what is the point of such an act?

Velvet Dogma by Weston Ochse

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When we first meet Rebecca Mines within the pages of Weston Ochse’s near future science fiction thriller, Velvet Dogma, she is the proverbial stranger in a strange land. After spending twenty years in a federal prison, much of it in isolation, for attempting to hack into and share secret government files with the general public, she finds a world radically changed from the one she knew before her incarceration, much of it to the point of unrecognizability. Advances in technology have occurred which she could not have possible predicted.

Trunk Stories #1

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The debut issue of "Trunk Stories" is a black-and-white forty-four page print zine filled with fiction, reviews, a poem, and a smattering of artwork. This is a publication that, from a content standpoint, is trying to do something a little different, something slightly unclassifiable. Fans of D. Harlan Wilson's strange and surreal stories should enjoy this magazine as they will feel right at home with some of the bizarre premises and realities contained within the tales presented here.

The Wall

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Jeff Long, author of a number of excellent books including The Reckoning, Year Zero, and the amazing subterranean adventure, The Descent (no, nothing to do with the British horror movie of the same name) is back with his latest novel, The Wall, a thriller set on and around El Capitan, the three-thousand-foot-high rock formation located inside Yosemite National Park. The story centers around a duo of fifty-something climbers, Hugh and Lewis, who have reunited for one last ascent of the titular wall, their first climb together in about thirty years.

The Fixer

reviewed by

Vampires. Ah, yes, those good ol' bloodsucking fiends. Those undead creatures of the night. Those immortal hunters of man. Popularized, oh, those many years ago by one Mr. Bram Stoker. Could he have suspected the impact of his novel upon future generations of horror writers? Probably not. Could he have imagined the sheer volume of tales written about his titular monster's brethren? Again, probably not. The vampire has become a mainstay of modern horror. It has become what the dragon is to fantasy, what the robot is to science-fiction. Dare we call it a cliché?

Tesseracts Thirteen

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"Chilling tales from the Great White North." So it says across the top of the front cover of Tesseracts Thirteen. "Chilling" because all of the stories presented within this collection would all be classified as "horror" or "dark fantasy." And "from the Great White North" because everyone involved with the project—including editors Nancy Kilpatrick and David Morrell, the twenty-three contributing authors, and the publishers themselves—are Canadian.

The Strain: Book One of the Strain Trilogy

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Guillermo Del Toro (yes, that Guillermo Del Toro) and author Chuck Hogan (Prince of Thieves, Standoff, The Killing Moon) have come together to create The Strain: Book One of the Strain Trilogy. Beforehand, one might think that the book would resonate with otherworldly, fantastic themes as one of its co-authors is the director of such films as Hellboy and Pan’s Labyrinth, not to mention the upcoming adaptation of The Hobbit. There are no elves here, though, no magical spells or friendly demons. What we have here is—wait for it—

Stir of Echoes

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OVERVIEW: Gauntlet Press's re-release of the classic Richard Matheson novel. Also included is Mr. Matheson's original screenplay adaptation of the book.

Snippets of Midnight

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The advent of print-on-demand publishing has certainly changed the landscape of modern literature. Now, if a person has a few hundred bucks lying around he or she can have their book published by any number of companies out there. Unfortunately, this means that a great number of books that should have never seen the light of day are finding their way into the marketplace. (And into my review stack.) On the other hand, there have always been those quality works which have, for one reason or another, failed to find a home at an established publishing company.

Slayer

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OVERVIEW: A modern vampire novel set in New York City featuring Alek Night, a dhampir—a type of evolved vampire that is capable of interacting with both worlds of darkness and light.

Right to Life

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OVERVIEW: A collection by Jack Ketchum that includes the novella Right to Life plus two short stories, "Brave Girl" and "Returns."

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