Another day, another derivative novel of the zombie apocalypse from an indie publisher. Still, overexposure aside, this reviewer doesn’t see the crowded subgenre as something to automatically revile; the odds of cool-to-crap are at least as favorable with the written word as with films. There are plenty of examples of successful literary zombie tales, from the indefatigable WALKING DEAD comics to the pioneering BOOK OF THE DEAD anthologies. Two more rotting romps to rear their decomposing heads recently are Genius Publishing’s THE HUNGRY and THE HUNGRY 2: THE WRATH OF GOD, both by Steven W. Booth and Harry Shannon.

The need to contemporize the horror/fantasy genres through juxtaposition with real-life modern-day tropes is by no means a new trend in fantasy fiction.

BEWITCHED was like many other shows of the 1960s, a pure slice of Americana about a couple living in the cozy suburbs—only with a supernatural twist. The husband is an advertising executive and the wife is a homemaker…and a witch! It ran for eight seasons on ABC, and the history of BEWITCHED has now been told in this massive tome by David L. Pierce, from BearManor Media.

There are a number of books that deal with the idea of vampires overtaking human civilization—the recent Guilermo Del Toro/Chuck Hogan STRAIN trilogy, for example—but VAMPIRE EMPIRE (Buzzy Multimedia), an audiobook written by Clay and Susan Griffiths and read by James Marsters, has a number of unique elements.

It’s something of a chore to write anything of the topic of THE CABIN IN THE WOODS; not because the film doesn’t deserve every single one of the superlatives with which critics crowned it, but because it’s such a challenge to discuss CABIN’s unpredictable Christmas-morning delights without letting some degree of spoiler wriggle free and rob some of the fun away for those yet to catch CABIN in theatres. So be warned, those continuing on below.

At seven volumes, one novella and several thousand pages, Stephen King’s DARK TOWER series is the definition of epic. Unfolding on the grandest of multi-world scales and incorporating recurring characters from throughout King’s almost forty-year writing career, the TOWER books are the finest example of King’s vast and formidable imagination soaring at full wingspan. While other writers or filmmakers get congratulations for successfully splicing two or three genres together, with DARK TOWER King juggles nearly every genre at once: Western, fantasy, horror, mystery, science fiction, crime drama, meta-fiction, post-apocalypse, teen romance, time travel, even comedy.

My friend, the largely unsung British horror/sci-fi producer Richard Gordon, died last November. This past New Year’s Eve would have marked his 86th birthday. It’s sad that Richard’s no longer here, as I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed getting together with the adopted New Yorker to hear his wonderful stories about the making of his ’50s/’60s films such as FIEND WITH A FACE (his best-known effort), CORRIDORS OF BLOOD, THE HAUNTED STRANGLER, etc. and his palling around with the likes of genre legends Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and Michael Gough. Though Richard is no longer with us, I now have Tom Weaver’s terrific book THE HORROR HITS OF RICHARD GORDON to reminisce about the man’s colorful career.