The Year of Cemetery Dance 2018

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Dana Jean

Dirty Pirate Hooker, The Return
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Apr 11, 2006
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79. Shivers VIII

Edited by Richard Chizmar

About the Book:

"Cemetery Dance Publications is proud to announce the eighth entry in this award-nominated and best-selling anthology series! In addition to the affordable trade paperback edition for general readers, this volume will also be published as a signed Limited Edition hardcover and a signed and traycased Lettered Edition hardcover, both of which will signed by the editor for the collectors!

Shivers VIII contains chilling fiction from many of today's most popular authors of horror and suspense including Stephen King, Bentley Little, Tananarive Due, Ray Garton, Laird Barron, Jack Ketchum, Kealan Patrick Burke, David Niall Wilson, Brian James Freeman, Alan Peter Ryan, Adam-Troy Castro, Bev Vincent, Keith Minnion, Norman Prentiss, and more than a dozen other authors!"

chizmar22_360x540.jpg


My Thoughts:

Desert Isle Design gives us the cover for this Shivers edition. Thank you person(s) who worked on this cover. Nice job.

This book of short stories was an interesting and creative collection. Well written by a number of authors I hadn't experienced before. That was exciting! I love to see new names (to me) represented.

My stand out story goes to Adam-Troy Castro. "The Hour In Between" was by far, in my opinion, the best story in this collection. The writing was authentic. The feelings it pulled from me were heartfelt. Sometimes (heavy sigh), done is done.

Stephen King fans will appreciate Squad D.

Shivers editions always have a nice sampling of styles.
 
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Dana Jean

Dirty Pirate Hooker, The Return
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Apr 11, 2006
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With 36 books read for this second half of the year, July 18, 2018 through December 31, 2018, here are the second half stats:



23 artists contributed beautiful and creative pieces to the works on my list.

I have gotten the pleasure of stepping into the worlds of 172 talented authors.

I have read 260 individual pieces of work.


Again, there were books that I only counted as one thing and not each individual entry. This half, I just gave credit to the main author on those. Those would be:

Taxi Driver, Created By, Night Show


Second half Top Ten was really hard for me this time. So many of them I liked for different reasons. So, my choices are capricious to this day, this moment. Ask me tomorrow and they will probably change.

In no particular order:

The Century's Best Horror Fiction Volume 1
Shivers VII
Flight or Fright
Bad Dog -- Tom Piccirilli
Submerged -- Thomas Monteleone
The Hogben Chronicles -- Henry Kuttner
He Is Legend
On This, The Day of the Pig -- Josh Malerman
Odd Adventures With Your Other Father -- Norman Prentiss

Screamplays
 
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Dana Jean

Dirty Pirate Hooker, The Return
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Apr 11, 2006
53,634
236,697
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Cemetery Dance 2018 Year End Stats for the whole year:

79 books read.

48 artists contributed beautiful and creative pieces to the works on my list.

I have gotten the pleasure of stepping into the worlds of 278 talented authors.

I have read 538 individual pieces of work.


My final Top Ten for the year 2018 are interesting to me as 8 of the 10 are short story compilations. I adore short story anthologies and will champion them over the novel to my dying day. In no particular order:


Knuckles and Tales -- Nancy A. Collins
A Long December -- Richard Chizmar
Shivers IV
Shivers VII
Bad Dog - Tom Piccirilli
This Century's Best Horror Fiction Volume 1
Cold Comforts - Pete Crowther
Nothing Lasting -- Glen Krisch
Flight or Fright
Floating Dragon -- Peter Straub
 
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Dana Jean

Dirty Pirate Hooker, The Return
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Apr 11, 2006
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First off, I want to thank SK, Inc. and Marsha for allowing us a place on the board to talk about books.

I am very aware and don't fool myself for a minute that if not for this platform, no one would have read one of "My Thoughts" regarding these books. The traffic drawn to anything I might have said was because of Stephen King, and I acknowledge that. They came for him and maybe wandered over and read one of my entries. If I would've had a blog doing this, I would have counted myself lucky if my cats read it. (and possibly gotten rich because of that, because... well, cats -- reading. You know). Nevertheless, how these authors and their works got noticed is what counts and I hope that some of you will try to find many of these books to add to your TBR piles. And hopefully they are authors you will continue to seek out. Artists who you will continue to recognize and enjoy.

I want to thank those of you who hit that like button on a consistent basis, or just once or twice. I appreciate your time to do that and hopefully you read what I said. bwhahaha! You know who you are. I know who you are. It's weird how a simple "like" can inspire a person to keep blabbing.

I want to thank anyone who anonymously read any of my posts. I appreciate you too and hope you were entertained.

I want to thank the bots, spiders and web crawlers who gave me some respectable numbers. What do you guys do with that information? Where does it go? Who is reading it? Do you sit around the break room and share, discuss and debate while oiling your circuits?

I want to thank all the Artists who contributed their creativity to these books. I championed you! To me, your art is just as important as the story. You are talented and appreciated.

I want to thank the Authors. I wish I had a smidge of your writing chops. You took me to exciting places, introduced me to many interesting characters and situations. At times you challenged me. You entertained me for sure and I learned something from each and every one of you. You did your job.

Thank you Cemetery Dance and all of you humans involved in creating these works for a great year of reading. I have collected your books and other publisher's books you sold for a number of years now. Unboxed them and put them up on the shelf. Didn't read them. Why? Life. Life got in my way.

I still have many books purchased from Cemetery Dance that I need to read, but alas, they will have to wait for another day.

I love your books. I appreciate the time, attention and detailed care that goes into what you sell. Beautiful books.

I can't wait to see what you guys have in store for us in 2019!
 
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Spideyman

Uber Member
Jul 10, 2006
46,336
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Just north of Duma Key
First off, I want to thank SK, Inc. and Marsha for allowing us a place on the board to talk about books.

I am very aware and don't fool myself for a minute that if not for this platform, no one would have read one of "My Thoughts" regarding these books. The traffic drawn to anything I might have said was because of Stephen King, and I acknowledge that. They came for him and maybe wandered over and read one of my entries. If I would've had a blog doing this, I would have counted myself lucky if my cats read it. (and possibly gotten rich because of that, because... well, cats -- reading. You know). Nevertheless, how these authors and their works got noticed is what counts and I hope that some of you will try to find many of these books to add to your TBR piles. And hopefully they are authors you will continue to seek out. Artists who you will continue to recognize and enjoy.

I want to thank those of you who hit that like button on a consistent basis, or just once or twice. I appreciate your time to do that and hopefully you read what I said. bwhahaha! You know who you are. I know who you are. It's weird how a simple "like" can inspire a person to keep blabbing.

I want to thank anyone who anonymously read any of my posts. I appreciate you too and hope you were entertained.

I want to thank the bots, spiders and web crawlers who gave me some respectable numbers. What do you guys do with that information? Where does it go? Who is reading it? Do you sit around the break room and share, discuss and debate while oiling your circuits?

I want to thank all the Artists who contributed their creativity to these books. I championed you! To me, your art is just as important as the story. You are talented and appreciated.

I want to thank the Authors. I wish I had a smidge of your writing chops. You took me to exciting places, introduced me to many interesting characters and situations. At times you challenged me. You entertained me for sure and I learned something from each and every one of you. You did your job.

Thank you Cemetery Dance and all of you humans involved in creating these works for a great year of reading. I have collected your books and other publisher's books you sold for a number of years now. Unboxed them and put them up on the shelf. Didn't read them. Why? Life. Life got in my way.

I still have many books purchased from Cemetery Dance that I need to read, but alas, they will have to wait for another time.

I love your books. I appreciate the time, attention and detailed care that goes into what you sell. Beautiful books.

I can't wait to see what you guys have in store for us for 2019!

Dana Jean -- might you consider continuing something like this thread throughout 2019? Reason I ask, as you said-- life gets in the way of reading from time to time. Having a trusted source with thoughts and comments helps to decide which book is actually worth a read. Understand you have a life, and a daily report can be time consuming-- Maybe a once a month post? Book of the Month! Just thinking out loud. And I really did appreciate your thread.
 

Dana Jean

Dirty Pirate Hooker, The Return
Moderator
Apr 11, 2006
53,634
236,697
The High Seas
Dana Jean -- might you consider continuing something like this thread throughout 2019? Reason I ask, as you said-- life gets in the way of reading from time to time. Having a trusted source with thoughts and comments helps to decide which book is actually worth a read. Understand you have a life, and a daily report can be time consuming-- Maybe a once a month post? Book of the Month! Just thinking out loud. And I really did appreciate your thread.
Genuinely, thank you for your kind words and the pat on the back. Don't have enough books for a full year at the pace I set, but perhaps a Cemetery Dance book every now and then to keep me reading might get thrown in here.
 

Dana Jean

Dirty Pirate Hooker, The Return
Moderator
Apr 11, 2006
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Dana Jean I appreciate the time and effort that it took for you to accomplish your goal and applaud you for it!! I am one of the ones that always looked forward to reading your thoughts and hope that you will continue it in 2019.
THank you Dan. You were always so supportive. Very much appreciated.
 

Dana Jean

Dirty Pirate Hooker, The Return
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Apr 11, 2006
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I just want to reiterate, these were my quick reactions and thoughts to what I just read. Not reviews. And of course, something I loved might be drivel in someone else's mind and vice versa. And that can also happen within ourselves. We are allowed to change our minds as we learn and age. And we are also allowed to love a piece of writing for all our lives.

Not every tale in an author's body of work is going to resonate. It's the author's job to sell his world. There are going to be clunkers because, as I've said, how we take in a piece of writing depends on so many personal things. A book doesn't live in its own vacuum, we bring something to a writer's work too, whether they like it or not. We bring our lives to the story, our experiences, our knowledge, feelings, prejudices, opinions -- and every once in a while, our "me" intrudes on the "thems" there on the page.
 
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Dana Jean

Dirty Pirate Hooker, The Return
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Apr 11, 2006
53,634
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The High Seas
Dinner With the Cannibal Sisters

by Douglas Clegg

About the Book:

"You're invited to dinner...

In October 1890 authorities discovered two teenaged girls at Bog Farm surrounded by a scene of unimaginable carnage. A legend grew of their cannibalistic night of terror, but young Lucy and Sally were never put to trial and no one has ever before gotten close enough to interview them.
Twenty years later, an inexperienced reporter travels to their New Hampshire farm, determined to shed light upon the events of that night.


Lizzie Borden, Dr. Crippen, the Windrow Sisters — murderers whose mystique has lasted more than a century. But of them all, the tale of the Windrow girls is unrivaled in its legend of depravity and innocence corrupted."

clegg13large_358x540.jpg


My Thoughts:

This handsome book is beautifully put together. Caniglia does the cover and the grainy artwork inside. In the story, Messotints are mentioned and while these are obviously not traditional Messotints, I think maybe they took their inspiration from them? While researching that technique, I also ran into what is called Aquatints, and that art form is atmospheric and aged along those lines too. My copy is a signed special edition which is always added fun.

Interesting look to the interior design of the book also. The rich red end papers and the use of black pages with the empty messotint/aquatint-like picture frames for the story are perfect and striking. Lovely. Kate Freeman Design is credited for those choices.

The story is perfectly fine. While the writing is very good and the story intriguing, we just don't get any real "meat." I wanted more lurid details. But, the lull of the story, the deceptively peaceful and misunderstood peculiar sisters and their creative home leave you wanting more. And that last paragraph gives us a morsel more. But it's left to us to write the rest of the story and fill in the shadows.
 
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Dana Jean

Dirty Pirate Hooker, The Return
Moderator
Apr 11, 2006
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Did anyone else get the notification for the beautiful photography book from CD? I can't remember the name of it or the author or if it was a CD publication or one of their Other Publisher books -- but it is going to be a fantastic book. I encourage any of you interested in the art to order it.

I so wish I could. I wanted it so much. Unfortunately, things happening in my life where I have to pull back from book orders.

But, for those of you who do order it, I am super jealous and super happy for you. It looks like a fantastic production.
 

king family fan

Prolific member
Jul 19, 2010
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south
Did anyone else get the notification for the beautiful photography book from CD? I can't remember the name of it or the author or if it was a CD publication or one of their Other Publisher books -- but it is going to be a fantastic book. I encourage any of you interested in the art to order it.

I so wish I could. I wanted it so much. Unfortunately, things happening in my life where I have to pull back from book orders.

But, for those of you who do order it, I am super jealous and super happy for you. It looks like a fantastic production.

I looked at it but did not order. Just ordered some other things last week, So need to wait a while.