A Special ToC: Years’ Best Dark Fantasy & Horror (2012) from Prime Books
You might notice something a little “special” about the following table of contents for the 2012 Years’ Best Dark Fantasy and Horror collection from Prime Books. But you’ll have to look at the list to find out what it is: “Hair” by Joan Aiken (The Monkey’s Wedding & Other Stories / F&SFJuly/August) “Rakshashi” by Kelley Armstrong (The Monster’s Corner: Through Inhuman Eyes) “Walls of Paper, Soft as Skin” by Adam Callaway (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Issue #73, July 14, 2011) “The Lake” by Tananarive Due (The Monster’s Corner: Through Inhuman Eyes) “Tell Me I’ll See You Again” by Dennis Etchison (A Book of Horrors) “King Death” Paul Finch (King Death) “The Last Triangle” by Jeffrey Ford (Supernatural Noir) Near Zennor by Elizabeth Hand (A Book of Horrors) “Crossroads” by Laura Anne Gilman (Fantasy, Aug 2011) “After-Words” by Glen Hirshberg (The Janus Tree and Other Stories) “Rocket Man” by Stephen Graham Jones (Stymie, Vol. 4. Issue 1, Spring & Summer 2011) “The Colliers’ Venus (1893)” by Caitlin R. Kiernan (Naked City: New Tales of Urban Fantasy) “Catastrophic Disruption of the Head” by Margo Lanagan (The Wilful Eye: Tales from the Tower, Vol. 1) “The Bleeding Shadow” by Joe R. Lansdale (Down These Strange Streets) “Why Light?” by Tanith Lee (Teeth) “Conservation of Shadows” by Yoon Ha Lee (Clarkesworld, August 2011) A Tangle of Green Men, Charles de Lint (Welcome to Bordertown) “After the Apocalypse” by Maureen McHugh (After the Apocalypse) “Lord Dunsany’s Teapot” Naomi Novak (The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities) “Mysteries of the Old Quarter” by Paul Park (Ghosts by Gaslight) Vampire Lake, by Norman Partridge (Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy 2) “A Journey of Only Two Paces” by Tim Powers (The Bible Repairman and Other Stories) “Four Legs in the Morning” by Norman Prentiss (Four Legs in the Morning) “The Fox Maiden” by Priya Sharma (On Spec, Summer 2011) “Time and Tide” by Alan Peter Ryan (F&SF, Sept/Oct 2011) “Sun Falls” by Angela Slatter (Dead Red Heart) “Still” by Tia V. Travis (Portents) “Objects in Dreams May Be Closer Than They Appear” by Lisa Tuttle (House of Fear) “The Bread We Eat in Dreams” by Catherynne M. Valente (Apex Magazine, Issue 30, November 2011) “All You Can Do Is Breathe” Kaaron Warren (Blood & Other Cravings) “Josh” by Gene Wolfe (Portents) Okay, so figuring out the special thing in the list shouldn’t be too hard, since I put it in bold and all… Congratulations to Adam both for his publication in BCS and his first anthologized “Best of” story! We’re sure his career will soon collapse under his mounting alcoholism… (we kid, of course — love you, Adam!) It might also interest folks to know that Maureen McHugh has a wonderful story in here, which is also in her collection of the same name from Small Beer Press (which I just finished and loved to death). And since I played a crucial role in getting Adam’s story published (yeah, I’m taking credit), that means this collection has not just one amazing story, but two. That alone is almost worth the entry price.
Episode 82 (Season Three) — Torture Cinema Meets Twilight
http://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/www.archive.org/download/TheSkiffyAndFantyShow2seasonThree–TortureCinemaMeetsTwilight/Sandf–Episode2–TortureCinemaMeetsTwilight.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSOur second episode of the third season is finally here. I say that knowing it’s only been a few days since the last episode went live. But we’re catching up on some unfinished business, so you’ll have to give us a break. Episode 82 is our much anticipated Torture Cinema feature, in which we review-while-intoxicated the wonderfully terrible “romance” flick known to lesser beings as Twilight (we like to call it “1,000 Ways to Destroy Female Self-Esteem”). We hope you enjoy the episode! Note: If you have iTunes and like this show, please give us a review on our iTunes page, or feel free to email us with your thoughts about the show! Here’s the episode (show notes are below): Episode 82 — Download (MP3) Intro and Torture Cinema Meets Twilight (0:00 – 28:17) Twilight (IMDB) Our new intro music is “Time Flux” by Revolution Void (CC BY 3.0). That’s all, folks! Thanks for listening. See you next week.
Monthly Movie Madness #7 — January 2012
http://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/www.archive.org/download/TheSkiffyAndFantyShow–MonthlyMovieMadness7–January2012/Sandf–MonthlyMovieMadness7–January2012.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSWe’re back with our monthly movie feature, albeit a little late. I’ll spare you the long explanations and introductions! Tune in and enjoy! Here’s the episode: MMM #7 — Download (MP3) The Movies (from IMDB): The Devil Inside Our scores: Shaun (4) / Jen (4) The Divide Our scores: Shaun (4) / Jen (4) Underworld: Awakening Our scores: Shaun (2) / Jen (4) What do the scores mean? 1 — I’d rather kill myself! 2 — Probably Torture Cinema 3 — Eh, maybe… 4 — I’d like to see it! 5 — I’ll be there in costume! The big question: which movies do you want to see and which would you rather throw in the dumpster?
The 2011 Google Reading List
Since August of 2011, we’ve been running a special feature on Google+ called “What Are You Reading?” All sorts of people have left their responses, which I’ve taken and entered into a Google Form for everyone to see. Here are some of the relevant statistics: 292 entries since August, not including double entries for individuals who were still reading the same book for several weeks (including myself) George R. R. Martin was the most popular author with 7 entries overall; R. A. Salvatore was a close second with 6 Runner-ups were Anthony Brandt, Jim Butcher, C. J. Cherryh, Larry Correia, Thomas Friedman, Neil Gaiman, Laura Ann Gilman, Mira Grant, Anne McCaffrey, Patrick Rothfuss, Brandon Sanderson, and Connie Willis, each of which had 3 entries each The most popular books were That Used to Be Us by Thomas Friedman and The Man Who Ate His Boots: The Tragic History of the Search for the Northeast Passage by Anthony Brandt with 3 entries each The most popular series was A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin 98 books written by women were mentioned; that’s 33.56% of the entries (to be honest, I expected a worse percentage than this) And there you have it. I was going to put up a gallery of the cover images, but that would take so damned long I’m not going to bother. If anyone else wants to take up that project, let me know. Thanks to everyone who told us what you were reading! Here’s to another year of the same thing! Now a question for everyone: How as 2011 as a reading year? Good? Bad? Why? Leave a comment!
Episode 80 — Torture Cinema Meets Rare Exports (Christmas Special)
http://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/www.archive.org/download/TheSkiffyAndFantyShow6.7–TortureCinemaMeetsRareExports/Sandf–Episode6.7–TortureCinemaMeetsRareExports.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSWe’re back with the last episode of the year. And it’s a special one: a Christmas Special involving a supposedly bad movie and alcohol. We hope you enjoy the episode! Note: If you have iTunes and like this show, please give us a review on our iTunes page, or feel free to email us with your thoughts about the show! Here’s the episode (show notes are below): Episode 80 — Download (MP3) Intro and Torture Cinema Meets Rare Exports (0:00 – 36:43) Rare Exports (IMDB) Our new intro music is “Time Flux” by Revolution Void (CC BY 3.0). That’s all, folks! Thanks for listening. See you next week.
Guest Post: Getting Rid of the Evidence by Lincoln Crisler
Whether you’re a mercenary in a dystopian future, a hardcore serial killer or the reconnaissance unit of the King’s Army, bodies are a fact of existence. Corpses are a pain in the ass, though. You can’t just leave them lying around. They tend to attract attention. They stink. Worst of all, they may hold incriminating evidence, or prove to your enemies that you were somewhere you’d rather they didn’t know you were. And we can’t have that. So, without further ado, here are the three most unique methods of body disposal I can think of. * PIGS They can eat the whole body, including the bones. Brothers Robert and Donald Duvall beat two hunters to death and fed them to pigs, and the Swine Method kept them out of the slammer for damn near two decades. They were only prosecuted and sentenced after a witness came forward with information. Other such incidents include those involving a father of 50, a man disposed of so his friend could collect his pension and a farmer’s wife. BODY LIQUEFACTION An environmentally-friendly alternative to cremation, the process is described in a BBC article as “submerging the body in a solution of water and potassium hydroxide which is pressurised to 10 atmospheres and heated to 180C for between two-and-a-half and three hours,” after which the remaining bone is crushed in a cremulator, just like the bone fragments left behind by cremation. The liquid remains are to be flushed into the sewer system, which has, understandably, generated controversy for a number of reasons, to include respect for the dead and sanitary concerns. BLACK MARKET ORGAN DONATION It’s not perfect. You have to know how to properly extract the organs, you have to know how to preserve them, and you need access to a trustworthy person who has money and a network. Pulling it off, however, would yield a benefit most methods of corpse disposal do not: a cash payoff. In some countries, organ sale is legal and regulated. In others, there’s merely a healthy black market. The latter folks aren’t likely to ask many questions, since they’re already disposed to such measures as holding people at gunpoint and removing their kidneys after tricking them into thinking they’ve been hired for a construction job. If you have to get rid of a body anyhow, why not make four or five figures in the process? It would certainly leave a smaller mess to clean up through more traditional methods. —————————————————————- * Obviously, if these were completely foolproof, we wouldn’t know they’d been done, but don’t be a wiseass, huh? LINCOLN CRISLER is the author of two short story collections (Despairs & Delights, 2008 and Magick & Misery, 2009) and one novella (WILD, 2011) and the editor of Corrupts Absolutely?, Damnation Books’ forthcoming anthology of dark superhero fiction. His work has appeared in a variety of print and online publications, to include HUB Magazine, Shroud Publishing’s Abominations anthology and IDW‘s forthcoming Robots vs. Zombies anthology. A United States Army combat veteran and non-commissioned officer, Lincoln lives in Augusta, Georgia with his wife and two of his three children. You can contact him at lincoln@lincolncrisler.info.
