​Start off October with a free horror story for your Kindle! My new horror novella Rakasa is FREE for a limited time at Amazon. But don’t wait long, because the special promo ends on Sunday, October 2.

Rakasa at Amazon.com
Rakasa at Amazon UK

Thanks to all who order and read the story!

​And please consider leaving a review afterwards!

31 horror movies, one for each day in October, which I will talk about after watching each night. I did this last year and I enjoyed the experience. But I made a mistake: I didn’t make a schedule and show it to others. That changes in 2016! Here is the schedule for 31 Days of Horror 2016 so that perhaps you may join in, watch with me, and discuss the films afterwards.
 
There’s a lot of uncharted territory here and I can't guarantee all will be horror classics. But let's find out, huh? I’ve added an asterisk * next to films that are currently available for streaming via Netflix. And a double ** next to films on Amazon Prime. You can also read the list at Letterboxd.

1. Exists – One of the co-directors of The Blair Witch Project returns to the woods for this found footage tale of campers in a fight to survive a Bigfoot encounter. That’s right, ya’ll. We’re starting off October with BIGFOOT.
2. Joy Ride – Paul Walker and Steve Zahn play a joke over the radio on a trucker but the dude turns out to be a maniac who rips people’s jaws off or something. Remember, Timmy, that radio’s not a toy! Hands off!
3. Zombie Fight Club – Hong Kong zombie flick with martial arts and babes. High art.
4. Stonehearst Asylum* – This may be tamer than the rest, a mystery involving an insane asylum where things are not as they seem. Good cast including Ben Kingsley, Kate Beckinsale, and Michael Caine, with direction from Session 9’s Brad Anderson.
5. Housebound* -- Horror comedy from New Zealand about a woman under house arrest who believes there’s an angry spirit in her family home.
6. The Invitation* – I’ve heard people call this one of the best films of the year. I know next to nothing about it. At this point, I kinda wanna keep it that way.
7. The Fly – David Cronenberg’s nasty remake of the horror classic with Jeff Goldblum is both an excellent creature feature and a sad story about disease and mental breakdown.
8. Christine – John Carpenter’s killer car classic based on the Stephen King novel. Carpenter really should’ve made more King adaptations. Sigh. In a better world…
9. The Last Winter – A horror movie with a message? Global warming horror story about an oil drilling team in Alaska, starring Ron Perlman.
10. Jeruzalem* -- I’m a little iffy on this one. Partially because of that stupid Z in the title. But it’s a found footage apocalyptic horror film set in Jerusalem. If nothing else, it’s a different setting, and that’s what drew me to it.
11. Dark Was the Night* – I like Kevin Durand. Underrated character actor. Here he’s hanging out in the dark woods, which is a pretty dumb thing to do in a horror movie. Bad move, Kevin.
12. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari* – This is one of those films I kind of pretend I’ve seen before even though I haven’t. Like everyone pretends they’ve read Moby Dick. Almost no one’s read Moby Dick to the end, I guarantee it. This is a 1920 silent film from Germany that’s inspired many crazy visuals in film in the nearly 100 years (!) since it was released.
13. The Hunger – The late Tony Scott’s feature directorial debut was a vampire romance starring David Bowie, Catherine Deneuve, and Susan Sarandon. I’ve not seen it since we lost both Scott and Bowie. I think it could potentially be an emotional film experience for me.
14. Kwaidan – Japanese horror classic with four stories of ghosts, magic, and madness. I bought the new Criterion Blu-ray a while ago and I’m eager to see the newly available director’s cut of the film.
15. Ghostbusters (2016) – I missed this in theaters. Might end up watching the extended cut.
16. The Canal* – Some have called this one of the most terrifying films ever. Others call it an absolute bore. Let’s find out!
17. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night* – Per the tagline: “THE FIRST IRANIAN VAMPIRE WESTERN” So… yeah.
18. Green Room – Currently ranking as my favorite film of 2016, Green Room is a seriously intense horror thriller about a band caught behind enemy lines in a white supremacist bar. It’s an insane and draining film experience.
19. He Never Died* – Henry Rollins as a… vampire? Zombie? Or a superhero caught in a horror movie? I can’t tell. It looks weird and cool, though.
20. The Hallows* – Ireland supposedly has evil fairies living in the woods. I totally believe it. This film might be a documentary, I’m not sure.
21. Nosferatu the Vampyre – The Werner Herzog remake starring Klaus Kinski. I might watch this in English this time. It’s one of the rare films where they shot it in German, caught their breath, and then shot the same scene in English for foreign viewers. Herzog likes the German language track for the film more, and that’s fine, but it’s time I saw the other version.
22. Carrie** – Sissy Spacek wins Prom Queen in this heartwarming coming of age story.
23. Out of the Dark* -- Hong Kong funnyman Stephen Chow plays an idiot who dresses like Jean Reno and tries to eliminate ghosts. I like Chow, dude makes me laugh despite the language barrier, so I’m interested.
24. They Look Like People* -- I LOVE that title. I don’t need to know anything else, that title has my butt in a chair. But others may need more convincing: it’s about a dude who thinks evil creatures are walking the world among us and he must decide whether to warn his friend at risk of looking like a crazy person.
25. The Wicker Man* – The goofy remake starring Nicolas Cage as a cop who karate kicks women and has bees in his eyes. Never seen it before – I only saw the original last year – but I’m expecting laughs and groans.
26. The Ring – So, umm, wasn’t the third film in the series Rings supposed to be released this Halloween? What does the studio have against that movie? Anyway, let’s rewatch the Gore Verbinski original, one of the best horror remakes ever made if you ask me.
27. [REC] 4: Apocalypse* – The original [REC] is terrifying. Even [REC]2 is pretty damn scary. But holy crap, [REC]3 is awful. Like, it belongs in a whole other universe from the first two, it’s so bad. Supposedly this is a step back in the right direction.
28. The Conjuring 2 – I saw this in theaters earlier this year and kind of loved it. Eager to see it again at home with a new audience. It’s scary and stylish and oh so cool.
29. The Wailing – Korean horror epic about a stranger wandering into a small town and is quickly followed by a mysterious sickness. From director Hong-jin Na, whose previous films The Chaser and The Yellow Sea are both amazing and dark as all hell.
30. The Witch** – Arthouse horror film about evil in the woods of the young American countryside. A critical darling of 2016 and a stunning debut feature for director Robert Eggers.

 31.     The Thing – John Carpenter’s horror classic is one of my Top 5 films of all time and a Halloween favorite. What better way to cap off the Halloween season?

My sci-fi novel In the Shadow of Extinction: A Kaiju Epic has been a long time coming. But we're getting closer to release date as artists are being hired and final plans are being made. I have here the first glimpse at some of the book's art, featuring the Tyrant, the novel's main monster.

This piece was created by the artist Wafalo. A finished book cover is coming soon, as well as more kaiju art and other announcements. Stay tuned...

​If you like what I do -- or if you disapprove of what I do but you still kinda like me anyway but you're not totally sure why -- you can now throw a donation into my virtual tip jar via PayPal! It's an exciting new world, isn't it?

https://www.paypal.me/WarnerKyle

I see a lot of other writers and the like with similar donation buttons on their sites. So, I figured, what the hell? Doesn't hurt to ask for help... Or does it?...

Don't feel pressured to contribute! It ain't nothin' but a thang.

Might also set up a Patreon account soon. I don't know. We'll see.

Many thanks to everyone who chips in! Every little bit helps. 

​The City Stained Red might be the first book I’ve read based solely on the author’s social media presence. And that’s not to say that I doubted the book’s quality (I didn’t) or that it didn’t sound interesting (it did). But just that Sam Sykes is one of my favorite personalities on Twitter and it made me curious to read one of his books, even if that book’s genre isn’t my #1 thing (more like a #5). Somehow coming across as both the lunatic and the wise man, Sykes offers wisdom on creative storytelling and also ponders whether or not manatees have strong opinions on anime. I love reading his tweets. So, I bought his book.
 
The City Stained Red is my kind of a fantasy novel. Instead of focusing on kings, manners at the table, the ranks of knights, and all the other stuff that the royals and their militaries are involved with, this book follows a small group of adventurers, a profession that’s not well regarded in-world.
 
The adventurers are led by Lenk, a skilled swordsman who wishes to set aside his blade even though destiny keeps calling for further bloodshed. Lenk is joined by his kinda-sorta girlfriend Kataria, a shict (think: elf) who wants to remain with Lenk but only on her terms. They’re aided by the rogue Denaos, a man with a mysterious past and many discarded names. The priestess and healer Asper hopes to be the level-headed member of the group, though she deals with a secret worse than all the others. The most powerful among them is the young wizard Dreadaeleon, but he’s so immature he’s basically a child entrusted with a gun. And filling out the gang in the bruiser role is Gariath the dragonman, who’s basically a bad mood made flesh.
 
The adventurers arrive in the socially and culturally divided city of Cier'Djaal hoping to collect gold for services rendered. Just getting into the city proves to be a problem at the start, as non-humans (“oids”) are not welcome through the gates. Then, the man who’s supposed to pay them essentially vanishes into thin air, and the gang of adventurers accidentally stumble into the middle of a small-scale holy war. The city of Cier'Djaal is a powderkeg just waiting to explode, so when you introduce a group like Lenk’s gang into the mix… Boom Goes the Dynamite. Hundreds of city folk die, demons crawl out of people’s throats, dragonmen throw down, giant spiders walk down the road like big ol’ cows, and there’s more than a couple moments of sexy fun time to enjoy. Sykes calls it “hot fantasy trash.” I call it 600 pages of fun and madness.
 
The City Stained Red, like a lot of genre fiction, has a lot on its mind. Each character gets an arc and there’s a great deal of drama and character development. The world-building is rich and detailed, owing little to the giants of the genre (in my opinion, at least) by successfully doing its own thing. And Sykes clearly has something to say about religion and the blood that’s shed in the name of faith and god (any god). The book lets the reader make their own deductions on what to make of the themes, but there’s some deep thoughts lurking beneath the giant spiders and demonic throat coughs.
 
Mostly though, it’s a fun book. Sykes’ sense of humor that he shows online comes through on the page. His characters deal with dark happenings but there’s always a twinkle of comedy in there somewhere, often with a witty comeback or one-liner. Never is it too goofy that it feels odd to laugh on one page and then recoil in horror on the next, though. Thematic substance is all balanced nicely, and nothing really feels out of place.
 
The City Stained Red is that rare book where I enjoyed spending time with basically every major character because they were all interesting in some way. Even the one who I didn’t like (the boy wizard is a punk), still featured in some of the book’s finest chapters. The way the character team dynamics work reminded me a bit of a videogame RPG. The characters interact, go off on side quests, report back, and so on. I was reminded of Mass Effect, despite the fact that this was set in a city that owes its economy to giant spiders and was not in fact set in space.
 
Also: The City Stained Red stars one of my new favorite characters: Gariath the dragonman is the coolest, funniest, meanest badass I’ve read in a long, long while. I would read a book all about Gariath complaining about humans, fighting crime, crushing heads, and saving the world, you know, if he feels like it. Seriously cool character with a surprising amount of depth beneath his hard exterior.
 
More books need dragonmen.
 
You can buy The City Stained Red on paperback, Kindle ebook, audio CD, and Audible. The book’s sequel, The Mortal Tally, is available now and is definitely on my list.