octoberfest

It’s my favorite time of the year–October! For one whole month, it’s like Christmas for horror and dark fantasy writers. Every where we look, there’s something spooky going on. The local amusement park is running several haunted houses and scare zones, another one is doing something with scarecrows for little kids, there’s a haunted pirate ship an hour from home, and, my favorite, the annual corn maze!

When not planning my weekends, I reread favorite stories.

Zombies: ah, the walking dead. There’s just something about a slow moving dead guy that’s coming to get you, Barbara. In books, the greatest novel in the world is World War Z. Ally Blue also has a nice little story on her site. Zombies. Whether in fiction, cartoon, music, or comedy, I love these guys.

Ghosts: Drawing Blood, by Poppy Z Brite. Before she began writing about cooks in New Orleans, she wrote about a cute artist coming home to the house where his father killed everyone in the family except him. He meets a cute hacker, who gives him an awesome blow job. Oh, and there are ghosts. Spooky ghosts. *whisper* Flying Spaghetti Monster, that blow job was hot ;)

Werewolves: mmm, characters with dueling sides. Lots of opportunity for conflict here :) My favorite story is With Caution, by JL Langley, followed by Emily Veinglory’s Eclipse of the Heart and Laura Baumbach’s Out There in the Night.

Vampires: I went through a huge vampire phase when I was in high school. It started with Kolchak: the Night Stalker and went to Lestat. I was the annoying kid who sat behind you in Interview with a Vampire, whispering, “that wasn’t in the book.” Despite my youthful fondness for Anne Rice, today I love Kim Newman’s Anno Dracula, Anne Cain and Barbara Sheldon’s Lost Souls, and Willa Okati’s Freedom Rising.

Demons: these guys surprise me. Gone are the days when they chased people, trying to kill them in grisly ways (surely I’m not the only one who spent a delightful All Hallows Eve watching Demons). Now, they’re mysterious and hot, like in Ginn Hale’s Wicked Gentleman.

Supernatural: these stories are a lot of fun to curl up with. The characters may not be facing a vampire, but that doesn’t make whatever they’re dealing with any easier. For this grouping, I’m fond of Kimberly Gardner’s Gift of Eros in the Ties that Bind anthology, followed closely by Ally’s What Hides Inside.

Witches: Brennus’ Witch, by DJ Manly. I think I’ve reread this book like twenty times this year alone. Jet Mykles had a nice little paranormal tease in Sly Spectral Trick. I’ve also liked just about everything in the After series. Really, I’m being impartial ;)

Written by Luisa Prieto

Dark fantasy writer by day, dark fantasy writer by night. I'm charmingly dull that way ;)
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