STARK INTENTIONS

Check out the home of Vincent Stark HERE

Walkers, Walkers everywhere and many a book to read

While we wait for the publication of my trilogy, The Dead Walked ( and there’ll be news of the first volume this weekend), I thought it might to a good moment to point readers to some of the other zombie novels mouldering in bookshops at the moment.  It would seem that everyone is aware of World War Z and so I will completely ignore that (admittedly excellent) title for the purpose of this article and direct readers elsewhere.


George Romero is usually credited with creating the modern zombie with his classic 1968 shocker, Night of the Living Dead but if any man also deserves this credit it is screenwriter and novelist John Russo who wrote the script of the original movie.  Undead, published by Titan  Books, collects together the novels Night of the Living Dead and Return of the Living Dead. Night almost follows the film script to the letter, though we do get to know the characters a bit better in John Russo’s novelization, but the real meat here is the all original sequel, Return of the Living Dead which revisits the same location ten years after the events depicted in the movie. The book is on sale now priced £8.99 which offers good value considering there are two full length novels within its covers. Zombie Apocalypse which was edited by Stephen Jones is another cracker. This book shares many traits with the aforementioned, World War Z but it is far from a carbon copy and is a great addition to the genre. Personally I actually prefer this one to World War Z since the story is more contained but WWZ came first and this title owes it a massive debt.
Dead Ways by Christopher Edge is a zombie tale aimed at the YA audience and although the book is light on the gore and mayhem which are so essential to the genre it does it’s job well and provides a riveting read. The book uses tension more than gross out and is all the better for it. The zombies here are genuinely scary and the book deserves to be a big hit. TV’s Walking Dead provides the inspiration for the first in a series of tie-in novels – Rise of the Governor by Robert Kirkman and Jay Bonansinga. The two writers are the idea choice to expand the Walking Dead universe since Kirkman is the original creator of the graphic novels while Bonansinga is a respected novelist. Though the choice of plot and characters seem a bit odd since much of this will mean nothing to the TV audience and only ring a bell with fans of the original comics. The Governor  doesn’t break any new ground  and is reliant on action set pieces which makes the book feel like a novelization.
Of course the zombie novel I want you all to run out and buy is The Dead Walked: Origin by Vincent Stark but then I’m biased since this marks my horror debut after a string of successful westerns written under the name Jack Martin and published by Robert Hale LTD. Origin is the first in a trilogy and you can read an extract below. Shuffle back later this weekend when we will announce the publication date for the first volume in the zombie event of the year.


The Dead Walked: Origin by Vincent Stark

The necromancer shall sing.
And the dead shall walk.
***


September was her favourite time of the year, and late September, when the autumn was just preparing to hand over to winter, when there was still a residue of the late summer warmth in the air, as well as the crisp promise of the iciness to come, had always been, as far as Missy was concerned, the finest chunk of that particular month.
Not for her was the spectacle of high summer, nor the morose beauty of mid winter. Of course they both had their fineries but these paled next to the season when the leaves glittered with reflected sunlight. It was the autumn, with September being the highlight of that season, which she loved – a time when nature put on its finest display as the lush summer growth was magically transformed as if by a sepia wand spewing gold dust into the air.

The sky itself seemed to glow at this time of year.

September was a time of promise.

A time of rebirth.

Not this September, though.

This September, Missy would remember as, the time the dead walked.

It's Doctor Who but not as we know it.

David Yates, director of the last four Harry Potter movie, as met with mixed reaction from fans over his statement that his Doctor Who movie, currently in the early stages of development will largely ignore the continuity of the television show. Yates has stated that for the concept to be a big screen success a total reinvention will be needed.

The two Doctor Who movies from the Sixties, which saw Peter Cushing playing the Time Lord ignored the TV series and as such the films have never been considered part of the canon. So if a new film does hit the big screen and rides roughshod over the TV timeline then this will be nothing new. And for a movie to be bogged down by fifty years of continuity would make for a plodding experience.

Yates is correct and Doctor Who does need a face-lift. Though I can't help thinking that certain aspects of the TV show would have to be carried over - The police box shaped TARDIS for one. But each generation has their own idea of Doctor Who - for me Jon Pertwee will always be the man but there are others who feel that the current incarnation, Matt Smith is the real deal.

It's very early days yet but already there is much speculation over casting with Johnny Depp emerging as a clear favorite to steer the TARDIS. Ahh well, only time will tell.

It's Full Stream Ahead

When the DVD format first hit the market a major selling point besides the improved picture and audio were the special features that could be crammed onto a disc, but these days special features seem to be vanishing. Check out the insightful article HERE on this very subject.


” I lucked out with the timing when I was in film school; I was there from 1998-2002, aka the glory years of DVD special editions. Nearly every movie had a commentary, and I swear I learned more from those than I did in any of my classes.”

The author of the article is quite correct and these days all but the biggest of titles seem bereft of special features, but far from seeing the death of special features we may be witnessing the death of DVD itself. Industry insiders believe that CD’s have another year or two left in them and that DVD’s have no more than five years. And the much trumpeted blu-ray format has not been the success that the industry wished for with movie fans being slow to adopt the new format. I myself consider myself a film buff and have well over a thousand titles in my DVD collection and  I haven’t opted for blu-ray because…well, because I don’t see the point. The audio and visual capabilities of a standard DVD are good enough to make blu-ray a wet fish.

It used to be that the industry were afraid of downloads but they seem much more comfortable  now, perhaps seeing a bigger profit to be made. According to the Wall Street jounal, the big shots have wanted DVD to die for quite some time, as it would be cheaper to sell movies over the net. But nobody wants to watch movies on their computer…or do they? BTIG Research analyst Richard Greenfield notes that Google searches for rental services such as Redbox and (especially) Netflix have skyrocketed and searches for DVDs have flat-lined. Searches for DVD terms such as “DVDs,” “movies on DVD,” “new DVD releases,” and “top DVD rentals” were off some 45 percent since their late-2008 peak, according to Google data. Contrast this with “Netflix,” whose query growth has eclipsed 90 percent in each of the past two years. Has the term Netflix become synonymous with home video, as Google has with search?

It would seem that Hollywood have turned their back on DVD and are now looking at streaming movies over the net.

Amazon bestselling Black Horse Westerns 14th Nov

As always charts provided by Black Horse Express

1. The Kansas Fast Gun by Arthur Kent (31 Oct 2011) - Kindle eBook
Buy new £3.19

2. The Black Horse Westerns: Collection No. 1 by Abe Dancer, Dean Edwards, Tyler Hatch and Scott Connor (1 Jan 2011) - Kindle eBook
Buy new £6.86

3. The $300 Man by Ross Morton (29 May 2009)
From £2.37

4. Silver Express by Gillian F. Taylor (30 Sep 2009)
From £5.40

5. The Ballad of Delta Rose by Jack Martin (29 Jul 2011)
From £8.92

6. Arkansas Smith by Jack Martin (31 Mar 2010)
From £4.99

7. Trail of the Burned Man by Thomas McNulty (30 Nov 2009)
From £0.94

8. Gun Law by Lee Walker (31 Dec 2009)
From £1.32

9. Battle at Gun Barrel Canyon by Wolf Lundgren (31 Aug 2011)
From £9.95

10. Comanchero Trail by Jack Dakota (30 Sep 2011)
From £9.48

Black Horse Extra - free online magazine

There a new issue of Black Horse Extra available online - edited and presided over by Keith Chapman the online magazine never fails to provide provocative and though provoking articles and, of course, it's all  imbued with a love for the western.

"A shrinking percentage of Black Horse Western authors are veteran, lifetime professional writers with credits in multiple genres and media: film, television, paperback originals, and comic books. Today, many more are novices and sometimes retirees from other professions or trades, realizing lifelong dreams of seeing their work in print through the good offices of the books' UK publisher, Robert Hale Ltd."

Check out issue 24 HERE

Tainted Stats

Weekly Stats Report: 7 Nov - 13 Nov 2011
Project: THE TAINTED ARCHIVE
URL: http://tainted-archive.blogspot.com/

Summary

	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thur	Fri	Sat	Sun	Total	Avg
Pageloads	490	530	574	461	477	423	503	3,458	494
Unique Visits	372	412	416	360	339	329	358	2,586	369
First Time Visits	349	384	385	338	326	311	345	2,438	348
Returning Visits	23	28	31	22	13	18	13	148	21