King Arthur Movie Tristan

These are a few of my sons favorite books, soon to be 12, he loves reading anything ghost/monster/UFO related.




Ask the Bones : Scary Stories from around the World
by Arielle North Olson

"The last thing the young man ever saw was a hideous skull grinning at him, just inches from his face, and long bony fingers closing around his throat" What is real and what is imaginary? Do monsters and wizards lurk in the shadows, along with ghosts and invisible men? Can women turn into snakes? Can skeletons take revenge? For generations, storytellers around the world have given substance to our worst fears. Here, master storytellers retell twenty-two of the eeriest folktales for this lively collection.










The Skull of Truth : A Magic Shop Book
by Bruce Coville

Charlie, a sixth-grader with a compulsion to tell lies, acquires a mysterious skull that forces its owner to tell only the truth, causing some awkward moments before he understands its power.






End Game (Midnight Library Series #3)
by Damien Graves
Simon prefers computer games to reality. But a shockingly real turn of events might mean "Game Over" -- forever. Catherine wonders if the customer is always right when a peculiar new customer seems very, very wrong. Juliet keeps getting urgent text messages from a stranger. Soon she'll wish her phone were dead. Welcome to where your darkest dreams meet with the unhappiest of endings. Welcome to The Midnight Library.











30 Tales to Give You Goosebumps
by R. L. Stine










Weird N.J.: Your Travel Guide to New Jersey's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets
by Mark Moran

For over a decade, Mark Sceurman and Mark Moran, publishers of Weird New Jersey magazine, have been traveling the highways and back roads of New Jersey, camera and notebook in hand, searching for the odd, the offbeat, and the just plain weird places and people that make the Garden State the truly bizarre place that it is.

The Dead Zone by Stephen King

rated: 4 out of 5








When Johnny Smith was a little boy, he fell on some ice and hit his head badly.
Ever since that day he gets strange 'visions', but doesn't think anything of it.
He becomes a school teacher and falls in love with fellow teacher Sarah.
One night after he takes her to a carnival, Sarah becomes sick with food poisoning.
Johnny drives her home in her car, then takes a cab back to his own place. On the way they get into a car accident, where everyone but Johnny dies.
He then goes into a coma for over 4 years.
After he is in a coma for nearly one year, Sarah gets engaged, eventually married and has a child.

When Johnny awakes from his coma, he comes to realize that he has been asleep for a long time. It depresses and scares him. He also finds out that his girl is married to another. His mom has become a religious fanatic. Johnny also begins to have 'visions'. He predicts events for a few of the hospital staff. And soon, the media catches wind of his psychic abilities and comes to ask questions. He has several painful operations and goes through physical therapy in order to walk again.


The story goes on to have Johnny help the police find a serial killer. Johnny can get visions after touching people or objects.
But he also gets all kinds of attention from people wanting him to help them. He becomes a kind of celebrity, though most people view him as a fraud or a freak. Johnny feels he has been cheated out of a life with Sarah, and now he just wants to live a normal life and go back to teaching.


'He was alone now, walking down this gloomy and deserted hall of shadows. And it began to seem to him that it wasn't an illusion or a mirage or a dream-at least not of the ordinary kind. It was as if he had entered limbo, a weird conduit between the land of the living and the dead... '






I enjoyed this book, it was spooky, sad and I like the relationship between Johnny & Sara. I also like the miniseries and the movie 'The Dead Zone'.

The Vampire Lestat

rated: 4 out of 5






'I am dead, I am a vampire. And things will die so that I may live; I will drink their blood so that I may live. And I will never, never see Nicolas again, nor my mother, nor any of the humans I have known and loved, nor any of my human family. I'll drink blood, and I'll live forever. That is exactly what will be. And what will be is only beginning; it is just born! And the labor that brought it forth was rapture such as I have never known.'






After reading Interview With the Vampire, I wanted to read the rest of Anne Rice's vampire novels.

This book started off slowly for me, but as I kept on reading it took off. I like how you never really know what is going to happen next in this story.


It starts off with Lestat being 'underground' for a many years, then awakening and finding himself in the 1980's. He is stronger than ever and starved for human blood. He finds out that Louis, wrote a book called 'Interview With the Vampire'.
After reading a copy of it, he tears it apart and decides to write his own book. He wants to write the story of his life.


This is where the book really takes off, when Lestat begins to tell his tale.
We get to see a different side of Lestat than the one Louis describes in 'Interview With the Vampire'. We also learn where Lestat comes from and you understand him a bit better. He describes how be became a vampire and what happened to the vampire who made him. We see what happened to Lestat's mother Gabrielle, which is very juicy by the way. (and all of this is of course fascinating to those who read 'Interview')
This book had some very creepy passages and I enjoyed it thoroughly.
A few of the characters from 'Interview' make an appearance in this book as well, as well as new vampires. We also see how the 'Theater of the Vampires' came to be.






'I had to find Louis. I had to talk to him. In fact after reading his account of things, I ached for him, ached for his romantic illusions, and even his dishonesty.
I ached even for his gentlemanly malice and his physical presence, the deceptively soft sound of his voice.


Of course I hated him for all the lies he told about me. But the love was far greater than the hate. He had shared the dark and romantic years of the nineteenth century with me, he was my companion as no other immortal had ever been.'




Anne Rice takes her vampires all over the world in this story. Even to Egypt and to the ancient pyramids. I really liked the references to 'Isis and Osiris' and other Egyptian gods and goddesses.



'The god Osiris was the god of wine to the Egyptians, the one later called Dionysus by the Greeks. And Dionysus was the "dark god" of the theater, the devil whom Nicki described to me when we were boys at home. And now we had the theater full of vampires in Paris. Oh, it was too rich.'






visit the official Anne Rice website

MISERY is manifold. The wretchedness of earth is multiform. Overreaching the wide horizon as the rainbow, its hues are as various as the hues of that arch - as distinct too, yet as intimately blended. Overreaching the wide horizon as the rainbow! How is it that from beauty I have derived a type of unloveliness? - from the covenant of peace, a simile of sorrow? But as, in ethics, evil is a consequence of good, so, in fact, out of joy is sorrow born. Either the memory of past bliss is the anguish of to-day, or the agonies which are, have their origin in the ecstasies which might have been.

-E.A.P.






As part of the R.I.P.
Challenge, I've been doing the 'Short Story Sunday Peril' and reading from 'The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe'.

It's a bit hard to review these stories, I don't really know why. Maybe because they are so short, but I will quotes the parts I liked best.





This weekend I read 'The Oblong Box', 'A Predicament' and 'Berenice'


I enjoyed these 3 short stories, and the setting was perfect, I woke up to a cold, rainy day and curled up with my book and a cup of tea.

I liked 'Berenice' most:


Berenice and I were cousins, and we grew up together in my paternal halls. Yet differently we grew - I, ill of health, and buried in gloom - she, agile, graceful, and overflowing with energy; hers, the ramble on the hill-side - mine the studies of the cloister; I, living within my own heart, and addicted, body and soul, to the most intense and painful meditation - she, roaming carelessly through life, with no thought of the shadows in her path, or the silent flight of the raven-winged hours. Berenice! -I call upon her name - Berenice! - and from the gray ruins of memory a thousand tumultuous recollections are startled at the sound! Ah, vividly is her image before me now, as in the early days of her light-heartedness and joy! Oh, gorgeous yet fantastic beauty! Oh, sylph amid the shrubberies of Arnheim! Oh, Naiad among its fountains! And then - then all is mystery and terror, and a tale which should not be told.







I found 'A Predicament'
to be strange and even kind of racist. It was just plain ridiculous at one point, it did make me laugh out loud:



But now a new horror presented itself, and one indeed sufficient tostartle the strongest nerves. My eyes, from the cruel pressure of themachine, were absolutely starting from their sockets. While I wasthinking how I should possibly manage without them, one actuallytumbled out of my head, and, rolling down the steep side of thesteeple, lodged in the rain gutter which ran along the eaves of themain building. The loss of the eye was not so much as the insolentair of independence and contempt with which it regarded me after itwas out. There it lay in the gutter just under my nose, and the airsit gave itself would have been ridiculous had they not been disgusting. Such a winking and blinking were never before seen.





'The Oblong Box' was not what I expected.

I called assistance, and, with much difficulty, we brought him to himself. Upon reviving he spoke incoherently for some time. At length we bled him and put him to bed. The next morning he was quite recovered, so far as regarded his mere bodily health. Of his mind I say nothing, of course. I avoided him during the rest of the passage, by advice of the captain, who seemed to coincide with me altogether in my views of his insanity, but cautioned me to say nothing on this head to any person on board.




I'll be reading more Poe and posting again next weekend.



see here for his complete works online

Since Halloween is soon upon us, I decided to post some of my favorite spooky reads:


1. Salem's Lot by Stephen King: One of my most favorite King novels, a scary vampire story. It's just so creepy the way the sleepy town of Jerusalem is home to blood sucking vampires.




2. The Taking by Dean Koontz : My favorite D.K. novel has alien invasion, nasty alien fungi, dolls and human heads that become possessed, and a very intersting ending. I highly recommend.





3. Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe : My favorites are 'The Tell-tale Heart' and 'The Raven'. I read these stories in grade school and always loved his work.




4. Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice :
One of my favorite vampire stories....very well written, creepy, sexy, scary....a must read.



5. H.P. Lovecraft: Tales: A creepy collection of spooky stories. Some of these gave me goosebumps, it's all so dark and scary.



6. yep...another S.K. movel....Everythings Eventual by Stephen King: I have a short attention span, this is one of the reasons I love S.K.'s short stories. I get my dose of a great horror read quicker. 'Autopsy Room Four' and 'Riding the Bullet' are particularly juicy.



7. Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz: My favorite of the three 'Odd' books, is his first in the series. It's a classic 'I see dead people' tale. And you quickly love the hero, Odd Thomas. Great humor is thrown in here as well.










8. Misery by Stephen King: Poor writer Paul Sheldon, gets into a car accident during a blizzard and is 'rescued' by manical nurse/#1fan, Annie Wilkes. The movie version was good, but the book is way better. Some parts of this story will just make you cringe....and that's a good thing.

Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice



rated 5 out of 5:





Wonderful! I began and didn't want to put this book down. It takes off right from the start. The novel is beautiful and exciting to read. I actually ended up really liking the vampire Louis, even though he is a cold blooded killer.

Next I have to read the rest of Anne Rice's vampire novels.





The story starts in modern day with the vampire Louis narrating his story to a reporter, whom is referred to as 'the boy'. This reporter is fascinated by Louis' life story and is tape recording while Louis tells his tale.





In 1791, Louis is a young plantation owner living in New Orleans. He is approached by a vampire named Lestat, who wants his plantation. Lestat turns Louis into a vampire. Louis feels guilt at having to feed off human blood, while Lestat kills humans every night. So Louis instead feeds off animals for some time, and hates Lestat for being so evil and so vengeful. He also hates Lestat for not revealing more to him about being a vampire, Louis has many questions.



As times passes, Louis becomes mildly infatuated with a woman named Babette.


'I had never seen her as she looked then; her hair was down for bed, a mass of dark waves behind her white dressing gown; and her face was tight with worry and fear. This gave it a feverish radiance and made her large brown eyes all the more huge. As I have told you, I loved her strength and honesty, the greatness of her soul. And I did not feel passion for her as you would feel it. But I found her more alluring than any woman I'd known in mortal life. Even in the severe dressing gown, her arms and breasts were round and soft; and she seemed to me an intriguing soul clothes in rich, mysterious flesh. I who am hard and spare and dedicated to a purpose, felt drawn to her irresistably; and, knowing it could only culminate in death, I turned away from her at once, wondering if when she gazed into my eyes she found them dead and soulless.'





There is one character in this book that really creeped me out, her name is Claudia.

One night Louis finds a crying child next to her mother who has died of The Plague. Louis & Lestat turn the 5 year old girl into a vampire, name her Claudia, and she and Louis become inseperable. He loves her all his life. They remind me of soulmates.
Claudia and Lestat enjoy hunting and killing. However, as years pass, she begins to ask questions and wonder why she is a vampire and what happened to her mother. Claudia begins to hate Lestat and plots to kill him so that she and Louis can be free.


The way Claudia is described in this book is very scary. She is a young girl, around age 5, curly blond hair, she looks and dresses like a doll, yet her eyes are dark and demonic.
Claudia is cursed to live her life in the body of a child, never to grow up or be able to take care of herself. People who see them, think she and Louis are father and daughter. But even Louis fears her at times and is tortured by the realization
that he helped make her a vampire. She tells Louis she hates him as much as she loves him for making her this way.


'Her jaunty, straight backed walk was not a child's, and often she entered small boutiques ahead of me an pointed a commanding finger at the perfume or the gloves she would then pay for herself. I was never far away, and always uncomfortable-not because I feared anything in this vast city, but because I feared her. She's always been the 'lost child' to her victims, the 'orphan', and now it seemed she would be something else, something wicked and shocking to the passers-by who succummed to her.'




Eventually, when Claudia and Louis begin to travel the world and search for other vampires, they find another vampire, Armand. I found the relationship between Louis & Armand very interesting. They have a strong bond.


This book was a great read, and I highly recommend it! I don't know what took me so long to read it.




'My vampire nature for me has been the greatest adventure of my life; all that went before it was confused, clouded; I went through mortal life like a blind man groping from solid object to solid object. It was only when I became a vampire that I respected for the first time all of life. I never saw a living, pulsing human being until I was a vampire; I never knew what life was until it ran out in a red gush over my lips, my hands!'






see more about this book at Anne Rice's website


see the movie version:
Interview With the Vampire







This book was part of the R.I.P Challenge

Brother Odd by Dean Koontz


This is my second book for the R.I.P. challenge.









rated: 3 out of 5








This is the 3rd book in the Odd Thomas series and I am sad to say I liked this one the least. I'm a big fan of Odd, and the first 2 books were so good. Odd Thomas was excellent, and Forever Odd was just as great. This one didn't hold my attention much though. It started off slow and didn't really take off at all.


It does leave room for another book though, so that's promising.
D.K. did include a few comedic lines as he does with these books, and I did laugh out loud at times. I love Odd's sense of humor.







In this one, Odd goes to live in a monastery in the Sierra Nevada mountains, where one of the monks goes missing. He starts seeing 'bodachs' and tries to figure out what is going on. Bodachs are kind of like ghosts that come 'round when death and pain are coming, only Odd can see them.

One thing I didn't like was that the sick little girl in the room says 'loop me in' to Odd, and he feels it is Stormy, his girlfriend who was killed in book 1, using this little girl to talk to him from the other side. But then nothing else really happens with that story line....

And what happened to Danny? Odd's best friend in book 2? He's not even mentioned once. You even wonder what is Odd doing in a monastery? I also didn't really care much for the other characters. The story really didn't have much excitement and when I first started reading, I was sure I'd be done in a day or two. Instead, it took me 2 weeks, because I didn't really feel like picking the book up again. Sad to say, I found it boring at parts.
It was almost like this book had nothing to do with the previous 2 books.




"Because I live with the dead, my tolerance for the macabre is so high that I am seldom spooked. The part-shriek-part-squeal-part-buzz, however, was so otherworldly that my imagination failed to conjure a creature that might have made it, and the marrow in my bones seemed to shrink in the way that mercury, in winter, contracts to the bottom of a thermometer.

I took one step toward where the school out to be, but then halted, retracted that step. I turned uphill but dared not retreat to the abbey. Something unseen in the camouflaging storm, something with an alien voice full off need and fury, seemed to await me no matter in which direction I proceeded."






see my other reviews for this challenge:



Frankenstein Prodigal Son by Dean Koontz

I just finished reading Frankenstein the Prodigal Son Book I by Dean Koontz. This is my first book for the R.I.P. challenge.









rated: 4 out of 5





I really enjoyed this read, it was creepy and full of suspense.




In the story, Victor Frankenstein survives to live in the 21st century. He lives as a rich scientist named Victor Helios in New Orleans.

The House of Frankenstein is pretty creepy to say the least. His staff is made up of his own monsters. And he has changed himself to remain young and to replace society with his 'New Race' of monsters.
He programs them whatever way he wants and performs all kinds of nasty experiments in his lab.





Frankensteins nasty creations already live among humans...they are everywhere. One of which is a cop serial killer, who is trying to slice people up in an effort to find out what makes them happy. Frankensteins creatures can never feel happiness.



A pair of homicide detectives, who are kind of in love with each other BTW, are discovering the truth and that Frankenstein is real.

Frankensteins first creation, calls himself Deucalion, and has been hiding in a Tibetan monastery for 200 years. Now he comes to New Orleans to help the homicide detectives and fight against Franeknstein and his monsters.


I can't wait to read the next part of the story 'City of Night'.




A character I liked alot is Victors wife Erika. She is made to be a slave to Victor, yet when he 'designs' her, he allows her humility, so she can feel shame. Erika ends up being more than what Victor expected, she enjoys reading Emily Dickinson and even admires the 'Old Race' of humans instead of hating them as she is supposed to.






'Life in the house of Victor Frankenstein was certain to involve more macabre moments than life in the house of Huckelberry Finn. Nevertheless, the sight of a severed hand crawling across the drawing-room carpet amazed even Erika, a man-made
woman equipped with two hearts.'-Frankenstein the Prodigal Son Book I by Dean Koontz

I found this R.I.P. II challenge and decided to join.

This is so up my alley.

'R.I.P. II is a September 1st through October 31st celebration of all tales gothic, eerie, creepy, and dark. Tales that one reads in the dark of night, experiencing delicious shivers of terror and suspense at each creak of the floorboards or each gust of wind.'




I am taking on 'the first peril' which is:

'Read Four books of any length, from any subgenre of scary stories that you choose.'

Here are my horrific choices:

1. Frankenstien, Book I by Dean Koontz

2. City of Night, Frankenstien, Book II by Dean Koontz

3. The Stand by Stephen King

4.
Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice






I'm also taking on an additional peril and will be reading:


1. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

2. A collection of tales by Edgar Allan Poe

3. Brother Odd by Dean Koontz (I've read the first 2 books in this series and have been wanting to read this latest one)





And I may try to get some H. P. Lovecraft in there as well.


Even if I don't finish by October 31st, I will keep reading until my list is complete.







---------------------------------



And since we're on the topic of all things spooky, I wanted to post my Dean Koontz autographed book here.

I posted this a while ago at my crochet blog before I had a book blog, but I think it's more fitting here:


Last year I sent my fav author Dean Koontz a fan letter
telling him my fav book of his is 'The Taking'.
I also asked him for an autograph and sent him one of my crocheted elephants.
Well, a few weeks later, to my utter amazement, I received mail from him.
He sent me a personally signed hard cover copy of 'The Taking', his newsletter
and a note saying thanks for the letter and the cute elephant!
*faint* need I say more?
I was thrilled! I still have everything he sent, carefully stored and I do take it out now and then to show it off to friends and family who visit.

Went to the book store this past weekend and grabbed this:

'On Writing' by Stephen King:





It is now part of my S.K. book collection. I thought I'd post a few of my favorite S.K. books here.

1. Salem's Lot: One of my most favorite King novels, a scary vampire story. It's just so creepy the way the sleepy town of Jerusalem is home to blood sucking vampires.




2. Misery: Poor writer Paul Sheldon, gets into a car accident during a blizzard and is 'resuced' by manical nurse/#1fan, Annie Wilkes. The movie version was good, but the book is way better. Some parts of this story will just make you cringe....and that's a good thing.

3. Needful Things: This is the first S.K. novel I read. It's how I became hooked. This novel makes you not trust any new small stores that open up in town.

4. Secret Window: Poor writer Mort Rainey, divorced and depressed....and one day a man named 'Shooter' arrives at his front door and accuses him of something Mort is sure he didn't do.

5. Everythings Eventual: I have a short attention span, this is one of the reasons I love S.K.'s short stories. I get my dose of a great horror read quicker. 'Autopsy Room Four' and 'Riding the Bullet' are particularly juicy.