ALTERED VISIONS:
THE ART OF VINCENT CHONG Vincent Chong Telos While Vincent Chong’s art certainly cribs on the work of Dave McKean, that doesn’t make these eerie and fantastical photo-illustrations any less compelling. This compact hardcover collects twenty of the artist’s works, most of which were commissioned for book and album covers, such as the dark-hued visage of a maniacally grinning man for Joe Hill’s Heart-Shaped Box. It pairs them with short blurbs of how each piece came to be, making this a brief but potent portfolio of Chong’s most memorable creations.
MONICA S. KUEBLER
BURIAL Neil Cross
Simon and Schuster Neil Cross’ seventh novel, Burial, is a supernatural crime-thriller that slowly builds tension but fails to deliver on the action. Protagonist Nathan has a murderous secret in his past, which threatens to come to light when an old friend shows up at his doorstep, claiming the woman they both killed is now haunting him. Suffering from an unconvincing plot and repellent char- acters, this sluggish novel is more an exercise in reader perseverance than genuine entertainment. JESSA SOBCZUK
FIGHTING THE LIVING DEAD Roger Ma Berkley Trade In the event of a zombie outbreak, could you throw down? This mili- tary-style handbook packs the know-how you’ll need to stay alive, including illustrated step-by-step training in hand-to-hand combat, detailed analyses of zombie anatomy, knee-slap- pin’ scenario-related strategies and field reports from combat vets. There’s been no shortage of zombie refer- ence books lately, but none as hilariously methodical as this one. Be ready!
THE ZOMBIE COMBAT MANUAL: A GUIDE TO
TREVOR TUMINSKI
Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney Jr. in The Black Sleep, a film explored in A Sci-Fi Swarm and Horror Horde.
A SCI-FI SWARM AND HORROR HORDE: INTERVIEWS WITH 62 FILMMAKERS McFarland
Nobody captures the oral history of fantastic cinema quite like author and researcher Tom Weaver, who
has more than 600 interviews to his name to date. His latest book, A Sci-Fi Swarm and Horror Horde, compiles conversations with dozens more fascinating figures, including Roger Corman, filmmaker/au- thor Ib Melchior (The Angry Red Planet), and even pudgy-faced The Sadist star Arch Hall Jr., an inter- view Weaver has cited among his favourites. What’s notable about this book – something of a monster itself at more than 400 pages – is that it
diverges from his previously successful Q&A format. Aside from a few quote-sprinkled pieces written as profiles and some entries which include the interview questions in parentheses, Weaver has opted for transcriptions of his subjects narrating their story as one long monologue. It’s understandable why Weaver wanted to switch up his style after a dozen or so books, but it’s not
an improvement. Without an interviewer’s interjections, the monologues are often rambling and focus primarily on the actor’s personal story, which is a problem for anyone only tangentially related to genre filmmaking. Occasionally, readers must sift through several pages of tiresome autobiography to find a half-remembered tidbit about working with Boris Karloff. Yet, despite these baffling editorial choices, A Sci-Fi Swarm and Horror Horde still delivers a dose of
absorbing content, leaving Weaver’s steel-clad reputation for uncovering juicy anecdotes and delight- ful insights intact. Highlights of this installment include memories of cheapie studio Bel-Air Productions by Paul Wurtzel (son of über-producer Sol) and Ken Kolb reminiscing about his script for Sinbad Goes to Mars, the famously unrealized Ray Harryhausen project. There’s even a gossipy piece that suggests the character of Norman Bates was not based on serial killer Ed Gein, but Castle of Frankensteinmag- azine editor/publisher Calvin Beck. Despite the quibbles over presentation, Weaver’s info-packed book is still a must for fans of his work.
Newcomers, however, are probably better off sticking to the classic Q&A presentation of his earlier re- leases.
PAUL CORUPE
ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER Grand Central
Don’t let the ludicrousness of the concept fool you: Seth Grahame-Smith’s follow-up to the interna-
tional bestseller Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is a painstakingly well-researched account of the six- teenth US President’s little-known career as a scourge of the undead. In his short introduction, the author outlines the circumstances that led him to come into possession of the journals that detail Lincoln’s
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