What’s been going on at our sister site, Flick Attack, “hitting you with one random movie a day … whether you like it or not”? Here’s just a sampling of what you’ve missed:

• COWBOYS & ALIENS & severe boredom
• Susan Lucci offers viewers an INVITATION TO HELL
• a 1960 adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s THE TELL-TALE HEART
• the holiday slasher DON’T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS, which is like if PIECES had a Christmas special
• the hottest Natalie Wood has ever been, in the comedy PENELOPE
• THE WAY OF THE GUN, unfortunately featuring an emergency C-section of Juliette Lewis
• Mickey Rourke backflipping his way out of Danny Trejo’s line of fire in POINT BLANK
• another PARANORMAL ACTIVITY knock-off in the lame GRAVE ENCOUNTERS
• another PARANORMAL ACTIVITY knock-off in Spain’s decent ATROCIOUS
• TUCKER & DALE VS. EVIL, and you win!
• Lucio Fulci’s HOUSE OF CLOCKS, where an early scene depicts a woman being stabbed in the hoohah, and her baby-making parts — looking not unlike bait-shop wares — spill out
• Tony Danza being out-acted by orangutans in GOING APE!

How many more reasons do you need?

What’s been going on at our sister site, Flick Attack, “hitting you with one random movie a day … whether you like it or not”? Here’s what you’ve missed:

• Italy’s THE FRENCH SEX MURDERS, which pretty much makes good on that title
• MAXIMUM RISK, just one of many Jean-Claude Van Damme flicks in which he plays twins
• SALVAGE, a cinéma vérité-style horror movie made with a typically bleak European aesthetic — that’s a compliment
• What’s Tina Fey doing a BEER LEAGUE, a lowbrow comedy whose idea of funny is “Practice is for fags”?
• MAHAKAAL, India’s version of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (read: with musical numbers)
• the 1970s’ swingin’, sex-filled THE SECRET OF DORIAN GRAY
• Ti West’s über-grainy bat flick, THE ROOST
• MACHETE MAIDENS UNLEASHED!, the best documentary ever made on the Filipino film industry
• Pia Zadora’s Depression-era, depression-inducing BUTTERFLY
• the spaghetti Western/slasher/sci-fi combo known as the cult fave HARDWARE
• RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD III, the most Shakespearean of the franchise
• the virginity-losing teen comedy LITTLE DARLINGS
• Fisty Hardcheese starring in DELTA FORCE 2
• Pinhead returns to make frat douches’ faces look like strips of uncooked meat at a Mongolian barbecue, in HELLRAISER: REVELATIONS
• Donkey Wang

How many more reasons do you need?

PHOBOS: MAYAN FEAR, Steve Alten’s third book in his “Mayan Prophecy” series, is a doomsday rollercoaster ride of adventure that follows Immanuel Gabriel to the end of the world and back again for one last shot at salvation. During Immanuel’s journey with his deceased grandfather, archaeologist Julius Gabriel, Julius reveals everything the Mayans knew and feared — from the secrets of creation that predate the Big Bang to the existence of extraterrestrials that have come to Earth to save our species.

We have five copies to give away, going to:
• Lisa McNulty of Chanhassen, Minn.
• Page Inman of Asheville, N.C.
• Mark Justice of Flatwoods, Ky.
• Sharon Berger of Albuquerque, N.M.
• Sam Cranes of Los Angeles, Calif.

Buy it at Amazon.

PHOBOS: MAYAN FEAR, Steve Alten’s third book in his “Mayan Prophecy” series, is a doomsday rollercoaster ride of adventure that follows Immanuel Gabriel to the end of the world and back again for one last shot at salvation. During Immanuel’s journey with his deceased grandfather, archaeologist Julius Gabriel, Julius reveals everything the Mayans knew and feared — from the secrets of creation that predate the Big Bang to the existence of extraterrestrials that have come to Earth to save our species. We have five copies to give away.

To enter:
1. E-mail us your name and mailing address (U.S. only; no P.O. boxes) with “Fear itself” as the subject line, to editor at bookgasm dot com.
2. Await Friday, Dec. 9, when we announce the randomly chosen winners.
3. Or, just buy it at Amazon.

What’s been going on at our sister site, Flick Attack, “hitting you with one random movie a day … whether you like it or not”? Here’s what you’ve missed:

• the made-for-TV THE INCREDIBLE HULK RETURNS, whose Thor “acts like Fabio after a week’s training of Hooked on Phonics”
• four movies from 1995 we have virtually no recollection of
• the “welcome mind-rape” known as BELLFLOWER, which involves flamethrowers
• 1932′s classic ISLAND OF LOST SOULS, which explores such issues as letting men “fuck leopard whores freely and without judgment”
• Andy Sidaris’ STACEY, starring Anne Randall as a private detective with a “FONDLE WITH CARE” T-shirt
• DOG SOLDIERS, “very likely the best thing to ever appear on the Sci-Fi Channel”
• the hotel-set anthology DO NOT DISTURB, which “makes FOUR ROOMS look like THE FOUR FEATHERS in comparison”
• France’s tribute to Italy’s giallo, AMER, containing “the best visual representation of an orgasm I’ve ever seen”
• John Stamos’ lone shot at action stardom, NEVER TOO YOUNG TO DIE
• the 2069-set sex comedy SPACE THING, “so no-budget, its opening credits are painted on naked breasts”
• KRAKEN: TENTACLES OF THE DEEP, featuring “a CGI squid that Nintendo would be ashamed to put in a DS game”
• PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3, which manages to “literally freak us out with a bed sheet. A bed sheet.
• six sex, sleazy and stupid Jess Franco films
• Tobe Hooper’s LIFEFORCE, made in a “time when Steve Railsback was considered a viable leading man”
• BANGKOK DANGEROUS, starring “Nicolas Cage with a lifetime supply of the inkiest shades of Just for Men”
• one sure sign Steven Seagal’s career is totally fucked
• THE STRANGERS, in which Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman “mope around and listen to Joanna Newsom on vinyl” before fleeing said strangers
• one of six underwater movies from 1989, LEVIATHAN, “watchable mostly for the gorgeous Amanda Pays and her irresistible accent (and underwear)”
• TOURIST TRAP, “from the era when Charles Band productions not only didn’t suck, but actually played theaters”
• Fred Williamson and “a Members Only jacket” star in THE BLACK COBRA 2
• A war veteran returns home with “a hankerin’ to kill all those meddling kids” in THE PROWLER
• the wrasslin’ documentary MEMPHIS HEAT, featuring guys who say things like “I was meaner than a damn rattlesnake and tougher than a two-dollar steak”
• Dario Argento’s THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA “likes it doggy-style”
• six actual song titles from MOTHER’S DAY MASSACRE

How many more reasons do you need?

What’s been going on at our sister site, Flick Attack, “hitting you with one random movie a day … whether you like it or not”? Here’s what you’ve missed:

• CHILDREN OF THE CORN: GENESIS. Warning: Billy Drago!
• Nick “drunkenly and good-naturedly suffering the company of hepcats” in SONG OF THE THIN MAN.
• CLASS OF 1984, “which has nothing to do with George Orwell’s book, but everything to do with all things awesome.”
• With “boobs, boners and buckets of blood,” H.G. Lewis returns with THE UH-OH SHOW!
• SATAN’S LITTLE HELPER, which “holds mega-potential for annual October viewing.”
• Bela Lugosi and The East Side Kids meet in GHOSTS ON THE LOOSE, “virtually laughless, but also utterly harmless.”
• POLTERGEIST II, a sequel that’s “full of manure.”
• 1955′s THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS, a Roger Corman effort that “should be called THE RELAXED AND THE REAR-PROJECTED.”
• THE CORE, the only disaster movie to reference “XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS and Hot Pockets.”
• The obscure ’70s soul musical TRAIN RIDE TO HOLLYWOOD, complete with a couple of songs “as catchy as herpes.”
• 1934′s MANIAC has cat-eye eating: “Why, it’s not unlike an oyster … or a grape!”
• “The budget only allows for a grampa mask” in the post-apocalyptic IN THE YEAR 2889.
• BLACK MOON RISING features “cranky-puss Tommy Lee Jones climbing through air shafts and doing donuts.”
• BLIND RAGE is “an oddball crime film that assembles a multicultural quintet who can’t see for shit.”
• The infamous THE TOOLBOX MURDERS is the kind of movie “where lovely ladies undulate in their underthings at night in front of open windows, as if inviting pervo-psycho killers with a True Value rewards card.”
• Where was Jayne Mansfield’s head at when she made SINGLE ROOM FURNISHED?
• Japan’s THE HYPNOTIST has something to do with “green monkeys.” We’re still trying to figure it out.
• THE HOUSE ON SKULL MOUNTAIN has it all: “stylistic horror, blaxploitation, Victor French with a porn ’stache.”
• Dom DeLuise’s directorial debut, HOT STUFF, which we watched “based purely on its leggy illustration of Suzanne Pleshette.”
• 10 VIOLENT WOMEN, where “the sex is as gratuitous as the disco music and Ted V. Mikels’ chest hair.”
• Chuck Norris vs. the big guy from SUPERMAN II in HERO AND THE TERROR.
• “A misogynist maniac on a mission” — that’s the medical horror of VISITING HOURS.
• A character from ALTERED STATES says it best: “Kabbalistic, quantum, friggin’ dumb, limbo mumbo-jumbo!”

How many more reasons do you need?

Just in time for the comedy act’s 75th anniversary is THREE STOOGES FAQ: EVERYTHING LEFT TO KNOW ABOUT THE EYE-POKING, FACE-SLAPPING, HEAD-THUMPING GENIUSES by David J. Hogan. In this excerpt from the Applause Theatre & Cinema Books release, coming out Oct. 15, the Stooges learn about “the fairer sex” …

In 1934, at the beginning of the Stooges’ tenure at Columbia—and for one film only—executives were not completely sure of how to showcase them. As we’ve seen, Columbia was a “minor major” that hadn’t the resources to make use of the boys’ talents in the MGM manner. But Columbia had established a “Musical Novelty” shorts series in 1933, and had the services of a vivacious blonde starlet named Marjorie White.

A Canadian native who stood just 4’10”, White had energy and screen presence to spare. (She also had a wisecracking, New York-style attitude that belied her Canadian origins.) During 1929–31, she’d been under contract to Fox Film Corporation, appearing in nine pictures. White sang and danced, and knew her way around a page of dialogue. She’d had leads and second leads in comedies and musicals at Fox, and found similar success later in pictures for First National, Universal, Paramount, and RKO.

Even more promising from Columbia’s point of view is that White held her own on screen with bombastic, well-established male comics. She was sterling in support of First National star Joe E. Brown in Broadminded (1931) and easily kept pace with RKO’s high-energy comedy-team sensation Wheeler and Woolsey in Diplomaniacs (1933).

White arrived at a propitious moment. The Roaring Twenties had come and gone, and the notion of the emancipated jazz baby who smoked, worked at a job, and necked with whomever she pleased had been diminished by the Depression. But movie audiences had become accustomed to smart, sassy dames, and White fit the mold. It wasn’t unreasonable, then, that the Three Stooges were designated as the fourth Musical Novelty entry, which would co-star Marjorie White. The boys would be properly introduced, and White—for whom Columbia had high hopes—would receive an amiable showcase.

All of that being said, the Stooges’ inaugural Columbia effort, Woman Haters, is among the two or three most perplexing shorts they made at Columbia. It’s also atypical, in the extreme, of their subsequent output.

In the end, the aggressive bride doesn’t take any guff from her husband’s pals: “This man’s my husband, we were married a coupla hours ago, and the agreement that you fellas signed is fake and it don’t go, ’cause everybody’s cheated, I can prove it and I know!”

Longtime Stooge fans will be happy to see blustery actor Bud Jamison as the leader of the Woman Haters; we’ll meet Bud numerous times in the course of this book. Some sources claim that later stock-company regular Emil Sitka (who would have been about twenty at the time of Woman Haters) has a wordless bit as a beat-up husband, and although the actor might be Sitka, the short doesn’t show up on any Sitka filmography, nor could this writer uncover any occasion when Sitka men- tioned the film.

For real novelty we have future three-time Oscar winner Walter Brennan, cast as a conductor on the train where most of the short’s action plays out. Brennan nearly always looked elderly, no matter his real age; here, he appears merely middle-aged—and as thin as a reed, too.

The film offers a few hints of the boys’ future greatness. When Moe sinks his teeth into Curly’s bare foot, Curly lets out with a ferocious “Woop woop woop woop woop woop woop!” Curly also reprises one of his gags from the Healy days, loudly whacking his derby on his head and moving his arm like a machine gun. Moe pokes eyes and administers plenty of slaps—one of which, in fact, is a startlingly violent backhand of a sort that we’ll rarely see again.

Most satisfying of all is that Larry, in the boys’ very first Columbia short, lets loose with one of his best-liked signature lines: “I’m warnin’ you!” Bliss.

Sadly, all was not blissful for talented Marjorie White, who was killed in a Santa Monica car crash on August 21, 1935, just fourteen weeks after the release of Woman Haters. The short was the last time audiences would see her on film. Just four years earlier, Columbia lost Robert Williams, its most promising young leading man, to appendicitis.

These losses were serious blows to Columbia’s spirit and to its bottom line. Fortunately, the Stooges were now on the lot, ready to pitch in.

Buy it at Amazon.

With Apple’s iPad not killing the Amazon Kindle after all, Jeff Bezos’ book lovers’ online paradise has released not one, but four new models of its popular e-reader. Bear with us so you can figure out which one works for your wallet.

• The all-new Kindle for $79 is the lightest, most compact Kindle — it can even fit in your pocket. This new design weighs 30 percent lighter at just 5.98 ounces, measures 18 percent smaller, and turns pages 10 percent faster. What hasn’t changed? The 6-inch electronic ink display still reads like real paper, even when the sun is shining directly upon it.

• The Kindle Touch is $99, with a touchscreen (natch) a la many an Apple device. Kindle Touch is also lighter and smaller, boasts an extra-long battery life and can hold thousands of books. Its new “X-Ray” feature, invented by Amazon, allows users to explore the “bones of the book” — i.e. more info about people, places or topics mentioned, including detailed descriptions from Wikipedia and Shelfari. This model starts shipping Nov. 21.

• The Kindle Touch 3G is the same model as the Kindle Touch, but with the added convenience of free 3G access, regardless of whether a Wi-Fi spot is around. For that, you pay a little more: $149. It also starts shipping Nov. 21.

• The Kindle Fire, at only $199, is the Kindle to end all Kindles … for now. On it, you have access to more than 18 million movies, TV shows, songs, apps, games, magazines and — yes! — books. This high-res, color-screen model also boasts the new Amazon Silk cloud-accelerated browser. This one starts shipping earlier, on Nov. 15.

Buy them at Amazon.

She’s back each Tuesday, pimpin’ out notable new releases to place on your radar, so let the tempting, publisher-provided plot descriptions begin!

FEAST DAY OF FOOLS by James Lee Burke — Sheriff Hackberry Holland patrols a small Southwest Texas border town with a deep and abiding respect for the citizens in his care. Still mourning the loss of his cherished wife and locked in a perilous almost-romance with his deputy, Hackberry feeds off the deeds of evil men to keep his own demons at bay. When alcoholic ex-boxer Danny Boy Lorca witnesses a man tortured to death in the desert and reports it, Hack’s investigation leads to the home of Anton Ling, a regal, mysterious Chinese woman known for sheltering illegals.

THE DOVE OF DEATH by Peter Tremayne — In A.D. 670, an Irish merchant ship is attacked by a pirate vessel off the southern coast of the Breton peninsula. Merchad, the ship’s captain, and Bressal, a prince from the Irish kingdom of Muman, are killed in cold blood after they have surrendered. Among the other passengers who manage to escape the slaughter are Fidelma of Cashel and her faithful companion, Brother Eadulf. Once safely ashore, Fidelma, sister to the King of Muman, is determined to bring the killers to justice.

WEREWORLD: RISE OF THE WOLF by Curtis Jobling — Imagine a world ruled by Werelords, men and women who can shift at will into bears, lions and serpents. When Drew suddenly discovers he’s not only a werewolf, but the long-lost heir to the murdered Wolf King’s throne, he must use his wits and newfound powers to survive in a land suddenly full of enemies. Drew’s the only one who can unite the kingdom in a massive uprising against its tyrant ruler, Leopold the Lion. But the king is hot on Drew’s tail and won’t rest until he’s got the rebel Wolf’s head.

GANDHI: A MANGA BIOGRAPHY by Kazuki Ebine — The life of a true 20th-century hero told in a vibrant graphic novel format. Through his quietly powerful leadership and influential use of nonviolent resistance in India’s struggle against the British Raj, Mahatma Gandhi became one of the most revered figures of the modern era. While history has recorded Gandhi’s words and deeds, the man himself has been eclipsed by maxims of virtuosity that seem to have little resonance in our everyday lives.

I LOVE LUCY: A CELEBRATION OF ALL THINGS LUCY: INSIDE THE WORLD OF TELEVISION’S FIRST GREAT SITCOM by Elisabeth Edwards — Upon the 60th anniversary of the landmark television show’s debut and the 100th birthday of superstar Lucille Ball, I LOVE LUCY includes rare backstage photos and images from the stars’ personal collections, Ball’s personal commentary on her favorite episodes, trivia, character bios, fashions, music, recipes and more.

Buy them at Amazon.

In the newly updated fourth edition of THE VAMPIRE FILM: FROM NOSFERATU TO TRUE BLOOD, editors Alain Silver and James Ursini track the form’s evolution from such 1970s reinventions as COUNT YORGA and BLACULA to the BLADE series in the Nineties, through 30 DAYS OF NIGHT, I AM LEGEND and the UNDERWORLD series in the first decade of the 21st century. All these films plus celebrated international examples such as THIRST and LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, plus hit television series, are covered.

We have one copy to give away, going to:
• Thomas Walker of St. Louis Park, Minn.

Buy it at Amazon.

In John Hart’s novel IRON HOUSE, the mob boss who gave orphan Michael his blessing to begin anew is dying, but his son is intent on making Michael pay for his betrayal. Determined to protect the ones he loves, Michael returns to North Carolina, to the place he was born and the brother he lost so long ago. There, he will encounter a whole new level of danger, a thicket of deceit and violence that leads inexorably to the one place he’s been running from his whole life.

We have one copy to give away, going to:
• Samuel Faris of Fort Collins, Colo.

Buy it at Amazon.

Sexual and spiritual healer and leader Caroline Muir delivers her autobiography, TANTRA GODDESS: A MEMOIR OF SEXUAL AWAKENING, on Nov. 15. Here’s your menses-packed preview …

Susan put her hand to her yoni and from its deepest folds brought forth some of her fresh menstrual blood. Tenderly, she touched my third eye, or brow center, with it as I began sobbing uncontrollably. I could see the power of the goddess in her as she placed another drop of her blood on my throat. “You will speak highly of the power of this anointing to other women,” she said.

“Give me another taste,” I said, desiring more of her surprisingly sweet moon flow. I asked her to smear her blood on my face and my breasts and thighs that I might fully claim my return to wholeness. … Susan gave me an incredible gift.

Buy it at Amazon.

In the newly updated fourth edition of THE VAMPIRE FILM: FROM NOSFERATU TO TRUE BLOOD, editors Alain Silver and James Ursini track the form’s evolution from such 1970s reinventions as COUNT YORGA and BLACULA to the BLADE series in the Nineties, through 30 DAYS OF NIGHT, I AM LEGEND and the UNDERWORLD series in the first decade of the 21st century. All these films plus celebrated international examples such as THIRST and LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, plus hit television series, are covered. We have one copy to give away.

To enter:
1. E-mail us your name and mailing address (U.S. only; no P.O. boxes) with “It sucks to the fourth power” as the subject line, to editor at bookgasm dot com.
2. Await Thursday, Sept. 22, when we announce the randomly chosen winner.
3. Or, just buy it at Amazon.

In John Hart’s novel IRON HOUSE, the mob boss who gave orphan Michael his blessing to begin anew is dying, but his son is intent on making Michael pay for his betrayal. Determined to protect the ones he loves, Michael returns to North Carolina, to the place he was born and the brother he lost so long ago. There, he will encounter a whole new level of danger, a thicket of deceit and violence that leads inexorably to the one place he’s been running from his whole life. We have one copy to give away. Please note this is the audiobook version.

To enter:
1. E-mail us your name and mailing address (U.S. only; no P.O. boxes) with “Tin roof, rusted” as the subject line, to editor at bookgasm dot com.
2. Await Thursday, Sept. 22, when we announce the randomly chosen winner.
3. Or, just buy it at Amazon.

Come Sept. 27, horror fans will want to sink their teeth into the release of THE VAMPIRE FILM: FROM NOSFERATU TO TRUE BLOOD newly updated and expanded by Alain Silver and James Ursini. Now in its fourth edition, the 488-page book tracks the genre’s evolution into the 21st century of movies and TV series. In this excerpt, Linda Brookover looks at politics in TRUE BLOOD.

TRUE BLOOD brings an unlikely array of characters out of the swamp into a soap opera of Southern seediness and short shorts. At the center of the tale, based loosely on the ten-volume Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris, are the new vampires. Their mission is to coexist with humans and the myriad other weird beings that inhabit Bon Temps, Louisiana and its environs. This setting has the proper Gothic atmosphere for both the novels and the series. Both begin with all the “fangers” outed, and some wanting to be welcomed into red-neck hang outs like Merlottes’ where they can sit a spell with the breathers. Eternal alienation is TRUE BLOOD hell, and the source of its deadpan Grand Ol’ Opry-style humor.

TRUE BLOOD is a parody of antebellum intolerance, where the vampire is just the latest entity to be vilified or wanting equality, unusual but not unknown to the horror genre. It follows in the politically correct if somewhat distant footsteps of such movies as George Romero’s anti-racist zombie movie NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. The people of Bon Temps are still embroiled in the same civil-rights-era struggles, which include the standard issues of race, gender, nationality, sexual orientation and now vampire rights.

The vampires of TRUE BLOOD have the usual aversion to sunlight and silver, require a proper invitation to enter human dwellings and, of course, must consume blood or the bottled, synthetic alternative “Trublood” in order to survive. On the plus side, they can see, smell, and hear with considerable acuity and run like a house afire. In both series episodes and novels, these blood-craving “supes” are a highly organized if quarrelsome bunch with lots of arcane rules and a feudal-style government run by monarchs and sheriffs. Mainstreaming vampires are represented by the AVL (American Vampire League) because, as former humans, their rights are inalienable, and, by the way, they pay taxes. Modeled after the televangelist types of the religious right, the Fellowship of the Sun is their prime opposition, who discredit vampires entirely for their soul-lessness.

Alan Ball’s HBO series widens and probes the complex connection between humans and vampires postulated by Charlaine Harris. While the narrator of the novel, telepath Sookie Stackhouse, is still the main character and soon joins the ranks of human sympathizers known as Fangbangers, she is a romantic, motivated by her affection for the chivalrous Bill Compton (who went vampire right after his service with the Confederacy) and not like those seeking to get high by drinking the illicit “V” or vampire blood. Hedonism is a major undercurrent in the aptly named Bon Temps, which in Ball’s vision progressed from the sex addition of Sookie’s brother Jason to the atavistic orgies when Maryann the Maenad comes to town in season two.

From the earliest episodes, pleasure seekers both living and dead come from miles around to mingle at Fangtasia, a vamp nightclub and headquarters of local undead sheriff Eric Northman. The transformation of this character from an older and colder vampire who has all but lost empathy for humankind — like most unreconstructed vampires, Eric views humans as either food or pets — to a lovesick fanger distracted by day dreams of Sookie is typical of the evolution of the series from quaint moments and biting parody to emotional drama, from sturm und drang to actual angst. Paralleling Eric’s “enlightenment,” there is a similar transformation in season two for Sookie’s bro, Jason, the main Bubba in Bon Temps. Guilt-ridden over the death of several lovers in season one, Jason joins the Fellowship of the Sun. He also seduces the pastor’s wife and ends up on the other side. prompting his anti-zealot taunt: “I reckon I’ve already been to heaven. It was inside your wife.”

In cross-cutting between a myriad of zany sub-plots, Ball’s constant irony is the contrast between the weaknesses of Bon Temps’ human society and the highly organized and disciplined world of the undead. Like many of the characters already surveyed, Bill Compton is the vampire next door — his old house being just a couple of magnolias removed from that of Sookie’s grandmother — and the sensitive male with especially sharp teeth who longs for nothing morethan human love. After fellow romantic Sookie saves him, he saves her, they share some blood and become soulmates, leaving her shape-shifting boss Sam Merlotte spurned and somewhat jealous. Sam rivals Bill in the sensitive and brooding department, and became enamoured of Sookie deep in the series’ backstory; but in the end he’s just presiding over the Bon Temps equivalent of CHEERS. As it was (and is) with a semitraditionalist like Romero, the ability of Ball and his collaborators to alternate between shocked and bemused reactions to a world full of fantastic creatures and events keeps TRUE BLOOD from becoming too horrific, too melodramatic, or too silly. The problems of the core characters may not rise to the level of Greek myth, but they are flawed, full of hubris in some cases, and too frail to avoid being possessed by others. These vampires and humans alike can be kind or cruel but almost all cling to their prejudices. Bill’s type does not feed on friends but broods instead over bottles of unfrosty “Trublood,” the powerful sustenance of politically correct vampires who crave redemption and acceptance in a vegan-like way. When Bill kills a vampire who is menacing Sookie, he is forced to create a replacement with neverbeen-kissed teen Jessica Hamby and instantly becomes a pompous parent: “Your bedtime will be at 4 a.m. and not a minute later.” “Whilst you’re under my roof, hunting is completely forbidden.” “We also recycle in this house. TruBlood and other glass items go in the blue container. And paper products go in the white container.”

Before she is done in by a serial killer in the first season, Sookie’s grandmother is one of the few enlightened beings, curious but not nosy, kind without condescension, rule abiding but not rigid. Her mirror on the vampire side would be Godric, who was more Daedalus than undead. Eric’s maker, he appears in the second season as one of the oldest of his kind, so weary of his 2000-odd years of life that he opts for vampire suicide via sun bath. Sookie, who has helped to rescue him from the Fellowship of the Sun, is the only witness to his self-immolation, as he transcends immortality by exposing himself to the deadly rays. Godric’s last words, “A human with me at the end, and human tears; 2,000 years and I can still be surprised. In this, I see God.”

It should be clear by now that TRUE BLOOD is more than a 21st-century, vampire PEYTON PLACE. It may seem at times overwrought, overdone or outright tacky, too self-absorbed and in search of a rip-roaring good time, but it’s really just a best-of-times, worst-of-times fable in a truly alternate world. The style can be dark or day-lit, dry or wet, noir or blanc. However the outrageous goings-on are staged, Bon Temps is there to soothe and provide freedom from ordinary standards of good taste, a shadow world as greasily delicious as a chicken fried steak, where all are welcome to indulge, to watch the characters “do bad things” then laugh or cry.

And that is how, “tiny humans,” TRUE BLOOD is about a new generation of vampires who reflect, have feelings, and do whatever they want anyway because they are individuals, not a monolithic vampire stereotype. They can be powerful and humble like Godric; scheming and seductive like the vampire Queen of Louisiana; or smug and power-hungry like the ruler across the river in Ole Miss. They might be childish, Yahtzee playing Delta Queens like Sophie Anne LeClerc or shoe-loving lesbian vampires like Pam. TRUE BLOOD vampires are as complex as their human counterparts, but in the words of Bubba Jason himself “Like if a tree falls in the woods, it’s still a tree ain’t it?” —Linda Brookover

Buy it at Amazon.

She’s back each Tuesday, pimpin’ out notable new releases to place on your radar, so let the tempting, publisher-provided plot descriptions begin!

LASSITER by Paul Levine — Jake Lassiter, second-string linebacker turned low-rent lawyer, is cynical about the law, but if you hire him, he’ll take a punch for you, and maybe a swing at the prosecutor, too. Amy Larkin — beautiful, angry, mysterious — accuses Lassiter of involvement in the disappearance of her sister 18 years earlier. What does Lassiter know about Krista Larkin, the runaway teen turned porn actress? More than he’s saying. Seeking to atone for his own past, Lassiter follows the cold trail of the missing Krista and butts head with the powerful men who also knew her: a porn king turned philanthropist, a Cuban prosecutor who’d love to be governor, and an aging mobster who once worked for Meyer Lansky.

SPELLBOUND by Blake Charlton — In a world where one’s magical prowess is determined by one’s skill with words and ability to spell, Nicodemus is a wizardly apprentice afflicted by a curse that causes him to misspell magical texts. Now, the demon who cursed him has hatched a conspiracy to force Nicodemus to change language and ultimately use it to destroy all human life. As Nico tries to thwart the demon’s plan, he faces challenges from all sides. But his biggest challenge is his own disability, which causes him to create chaos wherever he goes.

SANCTUS by Simon Toyne — A man climbs a cliff face in the oldest inhabited place on earth, a mountain known as the Citadel, a Vatican-like city-state that towers above the city of Ruin in modern-day Turkey. But this is no ordinary ascent. It is a dangerous, symbolic act. And thanks to the media, it is an event witnessed by the entire world. Few people understand its consequence. But for foundation worker Kathryn Mann and a handful of others, it’s evidence that a revolution is at hand.

THE SLEEPWALKERS by Paul Grossman — As Hitler and his National Socialist party angle to assume control of Germany, beautiful girls are seen sleepwalking through the streets. Then, a young woman of mysterious origin, with her legs bizarrely deformed, is pulled dead from the Havel River. Willi Kraus, a high-ranking detective in Berlin’s police force, begins a murder investigation. Despite his elite status in the criminal police, he is disturbed by the direction Germany is taking. Working urgently to solve the murder, the Jewish Willi finds his superiors diverting him at every turn. 

MURDER IN THE 11TH HOUSE by Mitchell Scott Lewis — Astrological detective David Lowell must use his astrologer’s charts and knowledge to solve the murder of a state judge in a New York City parking garage. Joined by his daughter, Melinda, a young defense attorney who believes the person arrested innocent; his hacker sidekick, Mort; patient assistant, Sarah; and bodyguard Andy, Lowell races against time to prove the innocence of Johnny Colbert, a mouthy bartender accused of the crime. Birth charts and street smarts help Lowell sort out the misdirections of a cast of characters, ranging from the judge’s clerk to the judge’s life itself, to trace the crime back to a surprising source.

ANGEL by Nicole “Coco” Marrow and Laura Hayden — A beautiful woman awakens on a plane and discovers that things are going terribly wrong. The plane is about to crash into the Hudson River, and she can’t even remember her own name. After she survives, the airline determines that her name is Angela Sands. But she has no idea who she really is. Reporter Dante Kearns is fascinated by the woman the media dubs “the Angel of the Hudson,” especially once he discovers her shocking secret: Angela can hear voices in her head — the thoughts of all men around her.

JUDY: A LEGENDARY FILM CAREER by John Fricke — JUDY tells the story of Garland’s movie work in unprecedented detail. Hundreds of never-before-published photos, newly assembled contemporary reviews, insight from her costars and co-workers, and production histories are provided for each film in which she appeared. Complimenting the films are a definitive biography, an examination of Judy’s short subjects, details of the movies she did not complete, and a compendium of film projects for which she was considered or rumored. The text is illustrated by more than 500 photos, encompassing poster art, costume tests, behind-the-scenes candids, onstage and backstage glimpses of her theatrical successes, and personal snapshots.

Buy them at Amazon.

Paul Simon has a new book coming out tomororow: LYRICS 1964-2011, a collection of his lyrics from 1964 to 2011. Here’s a preview.

Tih tih tih tih
Tih tih tih tih
Guh guh guh guh
Guh guh guh guh
Lih lih lih lih
Lih lih lih lih
Oom bop a doom

Buy it at Amazon.

What’s been going on at our sister site, Flick Attack, “hitting you with one random movie a day … whether you like it or not”? Here’s what you’ve missed:

• “Heads roll. Arms and legs fly. Torsos explode.” RAMBO.
• A PIECE OF THE ACTION isn’t very good, but “who among us would have the balls to tell Sidney Fucking Poitier”?
• Japan’s horror anthology ZOO, “not to be confused with the horse-fucking documentary of the same name.”
• “Shoot first, fuck questions” is the motto of Italy’s LIVE LIKE A COP, DIE LIKE A MAN.
• Uschi Digard in GETTING INTO HEAVEN, “your basic sex comedy with better-than-basic bosoms.”
• A really goofy photo of Matt Salinger as CAPTAIN AMERICA.
• The action-comedy SAFARI 3000, in which the villains are “worthy of Bullwinkle cartoons.”
• DEATH GAME, starring the breasts of “in her prime” Colleen Camp.
• The ’80s comedy LOVELINES will “make you want to kick William Shakespeare in the nuts.”
• FIGHTING LIFE, one of the few kung-fu films with “one guy’s Thalidomide flipper-nub flapping around.”
• The ill-fated TALES FROM THE CRYPT PRESENTS: RITUAL: “You’ll be praying for the return of Dennis Miller.”

How many more reasons do you need?

My life has changed so drastically since I started this site six years ago that for the first time, its birthday passed me by. But, yeah, in August, BOOKGASM officially hit the sexy 6.

Hope you’re still enjoying it. When I launched it, it was like pulling teeth to get publicists to take the site seriously. Now, with all but a few newspapers and magazines killing off their book sections, sites like ours are the PR peeps’ go-to vehicles. Similarly, the ease of ebooks and print-on-demand publishing has made virtually everyone “an author,” although a majority fails to realize the importance of a professional editor, a professionally designed cover and so on. The ebook and POD market is simply flooded right now; I hope the cream rises to the top. So far, we don’t review ebooks; we love the feel and smell of the physical texts. We’re reluctant to review most self-published books because many authors have thin skins about honest reviews. And we always strive for honesty, both good and bad.

Two quick notices:

1. To publicists and authors: Don’t take it personally if I don’t answer your email. I’m too busy with my career, freelance projects and family to reply to them all. I tried my best for a while, but I get so many in a single day, that even replying with a simple sentence took more than an hour. That’s time I no longer can afford to give. Trust me, though: They’re all being read.

2. To our readers: If you like this site, please consider supporting it by using as your gateway to Amazon, whether you’re ordering a book or a garden tool or a DVD or a pair of shoes. Whatever you wish, clicking any of our Amazon links to get there — you don’t have to buy whatever item you land on — results in us getting a small referral. And given the hosting bill I just received, even a small one is an appreciated one. And, yes, if you’re buying books, try your local indie bookseller first, but, geez, how many cities are lucky to have those anymore?

Thanks! –Rod

She’s back each Tuesday, pimpin’ out notable new releases to place on your radar, so let the tempting, publisher-provided plot descriptions begin!

THE POSTMORTAL by Drew Magary — John Farrell is about to get “The Cure.” Old age can never kill him now. The only problem is, everything else still can. Imagine a near future where a cure for aging is discovered and — after much political and moral debate — made available to people worldwide. Immortality, however, comes with its own unique problems, including evil green people, government euthanasia programs, a disturbing new religious cult and other horrors.

THE STRANGER YOU SEEK by Amanda Kyle Williams — In the sweltering heat of an Atlanta summer, a killer is pushing the city to its breaking point, preying on the unsuspecting, writing taunting letters to the media, promising more death. Desperate to stop the Wishbone Killer before another victim meets a shattering end, APD Lt. Aaron Rauser turns to the one person he knows can penetrate a deranged mind: ex–FBI profiler Keye Street. Keye was a rising young star at the Bureau until addiction derailed her career and her life. Now sober and fighting to stay so, Keye picks up jobs where she can get them: catching adulterers, serving subpoenas, chasing down bailjumpers and dodging the occasional bullet.

GRAVE EXPECTATIONS by Charles Dickens and Sherri Browning Erwin — Pip is a robust young whelp, an orphan born under a full moon. Between hunting escaped convicts alongside zombified soldiers, trying not to become one of the hunted himself, and hiding his hairy hands from the supernaturally beautiful and haughty Estella, whose devilish moods keep him chomping at the bit, Pip is sure he will die penniless or a convict like the rest of his commonly uncommon kind. But then a mysterious benefactor sends him to London for the finest werewolf education money can buy. In the company of other furry young gentlemen, Pip tempers his violent transformations and devours the secrets of his dark world.

JANE AND THE CANTERBURY TALE by Stephanie Barron — Three years after news of her scandalous husband’s death, Adelaide Fiske is at the altar again, her groom a soldier on the Marquis of Wellington’s staff. The prospects seem bright for one of the most notorious women in Kent, until Jane Austen discovers a corpse on the ancient Pilgrim’s Way that runs through her brother Edward’s estate. As First Magistrate for Canterbury, Edward is forced to investigate, with Jane as his reluctant assistant. But she rises to the challenge and leaves no stone unturned, discovering mysteries deeper than she could have anticipated.

DOWN TO THE BONE by Justina Robson — Lila Black is now a shape-shifting machine plugged into the Signal, the total dataset of all events in the known universe and all potential events: Zal, the elf rock star with a demon soul, is now a shadow form animated and given material actualization by firelight; Teazle the demon has taken up the swords of Death and is on the way to becoming an angel. To say this puts some pressure on their three-way marriage is an understatement. Meanwhile, the human world is seeing an inexplicable influx of the returning dead, and they’re not the only ones. Many old evils are returning to haunt the living following three harbingers of destruction created in the ancient past.

WHITE TIGER by Kylie Chan — Emma Donahoe has just started her new job as nanny to Simone, the daughter of John Chen, a very rich Hong Kong businessman. She understands that Simone may be a target for kidnappers but she does not expect to be drawn into a world of martial arts, magic and extreme danger, where both gods and demons can exist in the mortal domain. When John and his American bodyguard, Leo, teach Emma their particular style of martial arts, they begin to realize that Emma herself is more than she seems.

Buy them at Amazon.

What’s been going on at our sister site, Flick Attack, “hitting you with one random movie a day … whether you like it or not”? Here’s what you’ve missed:

• Poland’s FANTOM KILER, “the single most fucked-up movie I’ve ever seen.”
• The documentary THE DECLINE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION PART II: THE METAL YEARS, “about a bunch of shiftless douchebags who liked to wear makeup and get laid.”
• ”Someone is killing off Italy’s hottest naked women” in THE BLACK BELLY OF THE TARANTULA.
• “Adding a baby into a successful series is usually a shark-jump,” unless you’re ANOTHER THIN MAN.
• STAGEFRIGHT, a slasher in which the baddie is “a man in a giant owl head.”
• The beauty pageant mockumentary DROP DEAD GORGEOUS, “the rare social satire that has managed to become even more culturally relevant.”
• THE RUNDOWN = “spinning Tarzan jujitsu.” ‘Nuff said.
• Hell is “graphically depicted with lots of red acrylic paint” in Japan’s JIGOKU.
• INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS, “a far better movie than any movie called INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS has any right to be.”
• QUARANTINE 2: TERMINAL is “among that rarest breed of direct-to-video sequels: those not only actually good, but better than the original.”
• Eight ways in which FINAL DESTINATION 5 is exactly like TV’s THE OFFICE.
• An interview with TEKKEN director Dwight H. Little, in which the issue of Kathleen Kinmont’s breasts is brought up.

How many more reasons do you need?

She’s back each Tuesday, pimpin’ out notable new releases to place on your radar, so let the tempting, publisher-provided plot descriptions begin!

THE EDINBURGH DEAD by Brian Ruckley —Edinburgh: 1828. In the starkly-lit operating theaters of the city, grisly experiments are being carried out on corpses in the name of medical science. But elsewhere, there are those experimenting with more sinister forces. Among the crowded, sprawling tenements of the labyrinthine Old Town, a body is found, its neck torn to pieces. Charged with investigating the murder is Adam Quire, Officer of the newly formed Edinburgh Police. The trail will lead him into the deepest reaches of the city’s criminal underclass, and to the highest echelons of the filthy rich.

THE UNINCORPORATED WOMAN by Dani Kollin and Eytan Kollin — Justin Cord, the unincorporated man, is dead, betrayed, and his legacy of rebellion and individual freedom is in danger. General Black is the great hope of the military, but she cannot wage war from behind the President’s desk. So there must be a new president, anointed by Black, to hold the desk job, and who better than the only woman resurrected from Justin Cord’s past era, the scientist who created his resurrection device, the only born unincorporated woman. The perfect figurehead. Except that she has ideas of her own, and secrets of her own, and the talent to run the government her way. She is a force that no one anticipated, and no one can control.

THE MOON MAZE GAME by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes — The Year: 2085. Live-action role-playing attracts a very special sort of individual: brilliant, unpredictable, resourceful, and addicted to problem-solving. By kidnapping a dozen gamers in the middle of the ultimate game, watched by more people than any other sporting event in history, they have thrown down an irresistible gauntlet: to “win” the first game that ever became “real.” Pursued by armed and murderous terrorists, forced to solve gaming puzzles to stay a jump ahead, forced to juggle multiple psychological realities as they do … this is the game for which  they’ve prepared their entire lives, and they are going to play it for all it’s worth.

THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF WALWORTH: A TALE OF MADNESS AND MURDER IN GILDED AGE AMERICA by Geoffrey O’Brien — The Walworth family was the very symbol of virtue and distinction for decades, rising to prominence as part of the splendor of New York’s aristocracy. When Frank Walworth travels to New York to “settle a family difficulty” by shooting his father at point blank range, his family must reveal their inner demons in a spectacular trial to save him from execution. The resulting testimony exposes a legacy of mania and abuse, and the stately reputation of the family crumbles in a Gothic drama “sensational to the last degree.”

Buy them at Amazon.

What’s been going on at our sister site, Flick Attack, “hitting you with one random movie a day … whether you like it or not”? Here’s what you’ve missed:

• EVIL BONG: “What was Band smoking when he came up with this bargain-basement Full Moon production? That was rhetorical.”
• The 1936 sequel AFTER THE THIN MAN, in which “Nick spends the entirety of it smashed.” *Hic!*
• ”A wannabe BLAIR WITCH PROJECT sharted by the hacks in charge of The Asylum,” 8213: GACY HOUSE.
• South Korea fave Hyung-rae Shim’s “comedy” THE LAST GODFATHER, which we review via a series of tell-all screencaps.
• Dario Argento’s recent GIALLO, featuring a killer “known as Yellow, so dubbed for his jaundiced skin that’s a shade or two away from full-on Oompa-Loompa.”
• Mark Dacascos “beating back the undead with nunchucks” in I AM OMEGA.
• MACON COUNTY LINE, a redneck revenger directed by Max Baer Jr.: “By gum, Jethro, you done made yourself a fine picture show!”
• George Romero “collects a paycheck as host” of GEORGE A. ROMERO PRESENTS DEADTIME STORIES: VOLUME 1.
• The notorious A SERBIAN FILM, “so repellent, so sick, so depraved, it may turn you xenophobic.”
• THE YES MEN, a documentary starring two political pranksters and “an inflatable, phallic appendage.”
• We subject ourselves to “all 612 minutes — that’s 10.2 hours — of painfully simple slapstick and belabored set pieces” that comprise the seven POLICE ACADEMY movies.

How many more reasons do you need?

She’s back each Tuesday, pimpin’ out notable new releases to place on your radar, so let the tempting, publisher-provided plot descriptions begin!

STAR WARS: FATE OF THE JEDI: ASCENSION by Christie Golden — As Luke and Ben Skywalker pursue the formidable dark-side being Abeloth, the Lost Tribe of the Sith is about to be sundered by an even greater power — which will thrust one Dark Lord into mortal conflict with his own flesh and blood. On Coruscant, a political vacuum has left tensions at the boiling point, with factions racing to claim control of the Galactic Alliance. Suddenly surrounded by hidden agendas, treacherous conspiracies, and covert Sith agents, the Jedi Order must struggle to keep the GA government from collapsing into anarchy.

DARKNESS, MY OLD FRIEND by Lisa Unger — After giving up his post at the Hollows Police Department, Jones Cooper is at loose ends. He is having trouble facing a horrible event from his past. Then, on a brisk October morning, he has a visitor. Eloise Montgomery, a psychic, comes to him with predictions about his future, some of them dire. Michael Holt, a young man who grew up in The Hollows, has returned looking for answers about his mother, who went missing many years earlier. He has hired local P.I. Ray Muldune and Eloise to help him solve the mystery that has haunted him. What he finds might be his undoing.

THE NEIGHBORS ARE WATCHING by Debra Ginsberg — Aside from their annual block party, the neighbors on Fuller Court tend to keep to themselves, which doesn’t mean that they aren’t all watching and judging each other on the sly. So when pregnant teenager Diana Jones shows up, literally, on her biological father’s doorstep, the neighbors can’t stop talking. Joe Montana is a handsome restaurant manager who failed to tell his wife Allison that he fathered a baby with an ex-girlfriend 17 years ago. Allison, already harboring her own inner resentments, takes the news very badly. She isn’t the only one. Diana’s bombshell arrival in their quiet cul-de-sac sets off a chain reaction of secrets and lies that threaten to engulf the neighborhood along with the approaching flames from two huge wildfires fanned by the Santa Ana winds.

Buy them at Amazon.

Karin Slaughter’s most exhilarating novel yet, FALLEN, is a thrilling journey through the heart and soul, where the personal and the criminal collide, and conflicted loyalties threaten to destroy reputations and ruin lives. It is the work of a master of the thriller at the top of her game, and a whirlwind of unrelenting suspense.

We have two copies to give away, going to:
• Kathy Sales of Alba, Texas
• Rachel Peterman of Teaneck, N.J.

Buy it at Amazon.

She’s back each Tuesday, pimpin’ out notable new releases to place on your radar, so let the tempting, publisher-provided plot descriptions begin!

THE SIXES by Kate White — Phoebe Hall’s Manhattan life has suddenly begun to unravel. Looking for a quiet place to put her life back together, she jumps at the offer to teach in a sleepy Pennsylvania town at a small private college run by her former boarding school roommate and close friend, Glenda Johns. But behind the campus’s quiet cafés and leafy maple trees lie evil happenings. The body of a female student washes up on the banks of a nearby river, and disturbing revelations begin to surface: accusations from coeds about abuses wrought by a secret society of girls on campus known as The Sixes. To help Glenda, Phoebe embarks on a search for clues that soon raises painful memories of her own boarding school days years ago.

DEN OF THIEVES by David Chandler — Born and raised in the squalid depths of the Free City of Ness, Malden became a thief by necessity. Now he must pay a fortune to join the criminal operation of Cutbill, lord of the underworld, and one does not refuse the master … and live. The coronet of the Burgrave would fulfill Malden’s obligations, though it is guarded by hungry demons that would tear the soul from any interloper. But the desperate endeavor leads to a more terrible destiny, as Malden, an outlaw knight, and an ensorcelled lady must face the most terrifying evil in the land.

THE WATCHTOWER by Lee Carroll — Jewelry designer Garet James is the last in a long line of women sworn to protect the world from evil. Now she has received a sign from Will Hughes, the 400-year-old vampire who once helped her defeat the evil threatening to destroy New York City. Hughes, tortured by his own violent history, has asked her to join him on a quest to rid himself of his curse of vampirism. While looking for Will in Paris, Garet encounters a number of mysterious figures: an ancient botanist metamorphosed into the oldest tree in Paris, a gnome who lives under the Labyrinth at the Jardin des Plantes, a librarian at the Institut Oceanographique, and a dryad in the Luxembourg Gardens.

THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT PLAYS 2009-2010 edited by Barbara Parisi — Applause Books continues the series that for over 70 years has been the standard of excellence for one-act plays in America. From its inception, THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT PLAYS has identified new, cutting-edge playwrights who have gone on to establish award-winning careers, including Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, Wendy Wasserstein, David Mamet and Horton Foote (The Trip to Bountiful). This volume is Barbara Parisi’s fifth edition as series editor. The volumes of the new millennium include the work of playwrights Murray Schisgal, Adam Kraar, Theodore Mann, David Ives, and Mark Medoff, among others, and tackle complex human issues through diverse theatrical styles and a wide range of character perspectives.

Buy them at Amazon.

Karin Slaughter’s most exhilarating novel yet, FALLEN, is a thrilling journey through the heart and soul, where the personal and the criminal collide, and conflicted loyalties threaten to destroy reputations and ruin lives. It is the work of a master of the thriller at the top of her game, and a whirlwind of unrelenting suspense. We have two copies to give away.

To enter:
1. E-mail us your name and mailing address (U.S. only; no P.O. boxes) with “Slaughter me” as the subject line, to editor at bookgasm dot com.
2. Await Friday, Aug. 5, when we announce the randomly chosen winners.
3. Or, just buy it at Amazon.

What’s been going on at our sister site, Flick Attack, “hitting you with one random movie a day … whether you like it or not”? Here’s what you’ve missed:

• Japan’s computer-animated TEKKEN: BLOOD VENGEANCE 3D, which “should be titled TEKKEN: GIGGLE SCHOOL 3D”
• Wolfgang Petersen’s POSEIDON remake: “A boat flips, people die. What more do you want?”
• SWIMFAN, “a laughable, teenage take on FATAL ATTRACTION”
• Canada’s late-’80s horror entry ROCK ‘N’ ROLL NIGHTMARE, winner of “the title of Greatest Movie Twist Ending of All Time”
• SOUL PLANE, which “makes the Wayans brothers’ WHITE CHICKS look like ROOTS”
• Will Smith in I, ROBOT: “Me, unimpressed. You, better off doing something else.”
• Why watch the ’80s sex comedy PRIVATE SCHOOL? “The answer is simple: Betsy Russell riding topless on a horse.”
• Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao and “a dude getting stabbed right in the taint” star in Hong Kong’s war actioner EASTERN CONDORS
• Lucio Fulci’s THE BEYOND, which proves that “building a hotel over one of the seven gateways to Hell will come back to bite you in the ass”
• 1941′s comedic MR. AND MRS. SMITH, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, “thinking that he’d bring a fresh perspective to the genre. He didn’t.”

How many more reasons do you need?

Reminiscent of the work of David Mitchell, Peter Carey, and Jonathan Safran Foer, Luke Williams’ debut novel, THE ECHO CHAMBER, is narrated by 54-year-old Evie Steppman, who as a child, exhibited extraordinarily acute powers of hearing. Now, alone in an attic in Scotland filled with objects from her past and with her powers of hearing starting to fade, she sets out to record her history before it all disintegrates into a meaningless din.

We have one copy to give away, going to:
• Sanford Hausler of Teaneck, N.J.

Buy it at Amazon.

She’s back each Tuesday, pimpin’ out notable new releases to place on your radar, so let the tempting, publisher-provided plot descriptions begin!

FULL BLACK by Brad Thor — A wave of dramatic terrorist attacks is set in motion. Their goal: the complete and total collapse of the United States. With the CIA’s intelligence abilities hobbled, former Navy SEAL Team 6 member turned covert counterterrorism operative Scot Harvath launches an audacious plan to infiltrate the terrorists’ network and prevent one of the biggest threats the United States has ever faced. Simultaneously, a foreign wet work team has been sent to California. Their target: one of Hollywood’s most famous filmmakers.

ORIGIN UNKNOWN by Pierre Davis — Dr. Lydia South, a cutting-edge neuroscientist, has perfected a lucrative, top-secret technology that can map secrets of the brain. But Lydia’s past is inextricably bound with that of a brilliant but deranged sociopath, a man with the ability to blend in anywhere around the world, sow seeds of destruction, and escape unscathed — and he’ll stop at nothing to remain anonymous.

IN SEARCH OF THE ROSE NOTES by Emily Arsenault — Eleven-year-olds Nora and Charlotte were best friends. When their teenage babysitter, Rose, disappeared under mysterious circumstances, the girls decided to “investigate.” But their search — aided by paranormal theories and techniques gleaned from old Time-Life books — went nowhere. Years later, Nora is drawn back to her old neighborhood and estranged friend when Rose’s remains are finally discovered. Upset over their earlier failure to solve the possible murder, Charlotte is adamant that they join forces and try again.

STORMLORD’S EXILE by Glenda Larke — Shale is finally free from his greatest enemy. But now, he is responsible for bringing life-giving rain to all the people of the Quartern. He must stretch his powers to the limit or his people will die, if they don’t meet a nomad’s blade first. Terelle is Shale’s secret weapon, covertly boosting his powers with her own mystical abilities. But her people may save Shale and his people once again … or lead them to their doom.

Buy them at Amazon.

Reminiscent of the work of David Mitchell, Peter Carey, and Jonathan Safran Foer, Luke Williams’ debut novel, THE ECHO CHAMBER, is narrated by 54-year-old Evie Steppman, who as a child, exhibited extraordinarily acute powers of hearing. Now, alone in an attic in Scotland filled with objects from her past and with her powers of hearing starting to fade, she sets out to record her history before it all disintegrates into a meaningless din. We have one copy to give away.

To enter:
1. E-mail us your name and mailing address (U.S. only; no P.O. boxes) with “Echo echo echo” as the subject line, to editor at bookgasm dot com.
2. Await Friday, June 29, when we announce the randomly chosen winners.
3. Or, just buy it at Amazon.

Now out from the GRAPHIC CLASSICS line is WESTERN CLASSICS, a full-color, 144-page collection of seven classic Old West tales transformed into new comics. Featured are:
• an adaptation of Zane Grey’s grand Western prototype novel, RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE, illustrated by Cynthia Martin;
• an early Hopalong Cassidy story illustrated by original “Hoppy” newspaper strip artist Dan Spiegle; and
• a comic Western by Conan the Barbarian creator Robert E. Howard.

The 20th volume in the series also includes stories by Bret Harte, Willa Cather, Gertrude Atherton and John G. Neihardt, with art and adaptations by Trina Robbins, John Findley, Arnold Arre, George Sellas, Reno Maniquis, Ryan Huna Smith and yours truly. Get a glimpse of art from five tales after the jump. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Graphic Classics.

In Michael Marshall’s thriller KILLER MOVE, Bill Moore has it all. Until one morning, he arrives at work to find a card waiting for him, with no indication who it’s from or why it was sent. Its message is just one word: “modified.” When things begin to unwind rapidly, and one after another, people around Bill start to die, it becomes increasingly clear that someone somewhere has a very different plan for his future.

We have one copy to give away, going to:
• Grant Cummings of Akron, Ohio

Buy it at Amazon.

She’s back each Tuesday, pimpin’ out notable new releases to place on your radar, so let the tempting, publisher-provided plot descriptions begin!

EYES WIDE OPEN by Andrew Gross — Jay Erlich’s nephew has been found at the bottom of a cliff at Morrow Bay. It’s all just a tragic suicide, until secrets from the past begin to rear up again. Did a notorious killer, jailed for many decades, have his hand in this? Years ago, Jay Erlich’s older brother, Charlie, a wayward child of the ’60s, set out for California, where he fell under the sway of a charismatic but deeply disturbed cultlike figure. Tragedy ensued and lives were destroyed, but as the decades passed, Charlie lived a quiet, secluded life under the radar. Yet the demons that nearly destroyed him never completely disappeared.

THE CONFESSION by John Grisham — In 1998, Travis Boyette abducted, raped and strangled a popular high school cheerleader. He buried her body so that it would never be found, then watched as police and prosecutors arrested and convicted Donté Drumm, a local football star, and marched him off to death row. Nine years later, Donté is four days away from his execution, and Travis suffers from an inoperable brain tumor. For the first time in his miserable life, he decides to confess. But how can a guilty man convince lawyers, judges and politicians that they’re about to execute an innocent man?

THE FALLING MACHINE: THE SOCIETY OF STEAM, BOOK ONE by Andrew Mayer — In 1880, women aren’t allowed to vote, much less dress up in a costume and fight crime. But 20-year-old socialite Sarah Stanton still dreams of becoming a hero. Her opportunity arrives in tragedy when the leader of the Society of Paragons, New York’s greatest team of gentlemen adventurers, is murdered right before her eyes. To uncover the truth behind the assassination, she joins forces with the amazing mechanical man known as The Automaton. Together, they unmask a conspiracy at the heart of the Paragons that reveals the world of heroes and high-society is built on a crumbling foundation of greed and lies.

THE TRAITOR’S EMBLEM by Juan Gómez-Jurado — After his family fall into disgrace, 15-year-old Paul Reiner and his mother work as servants in the palace of Baron Von Schroeder. Unhappy and full of despair, Paul dreams of the heroic father he never knew. But one night, seconds before committing suicide, Paul’s cousin reveals a terrible secret. Paul’s father didn’t die in the First World War, as he had always been told. He was killed by someone very close to him, and for unclear reasons. This discovery turns Paul’s world upside down and from that moment, Paul sacrifices everything to discover the truth behind his father’s death.

NO REST FOR THE DEAD by 26 writers — Alexander McCall Smith. Sandra Brown. Faye Kellerman. J.A. Jance. Jeffery Deaver. Kathy Reichs. Lisa Scottoline. Jeff Lindsay. R.L. Stine. Thomas Cook. T. Jefferson Parker. Michael Palmer. Matthew Pearl. Marcus Sakey. Jonathan Santlofer. These are only a handful of the names that make up the all-star lineup of this collaborative serial mystery surrounding the murder of Christopher Thomas, a ruthless curator at San Francisco’s McFall Art Museum, whose decaying body is found in an iron maiden in a Berlin museum.

THE PARADISE PROPHECY by Robert Browne — Agent Bernadette Callahan is a talented investigator at a shadowy government organization known only as Section, on the trail of a serial killer with nearly supernatural abilities. Sebastian “Batty” LaLaurie is a religious historian who knows far too much about the other side- and that hard-earned knowledge is exactly what Callahan needs. This unlikely duo pair up for a race across the globe, decoding clues left in ancient texts. In the process, they stumble upon a vast conspiracy — one beyond the scope of mankind’s darkest imagination.

THE SECRET OF CRICKLEY HALL by James Herbert — Would you stay in a haunted house for more than one night? Would you live in a place where ghostly things keep happening? Where a cellar door you know you locked the night before is always open the following morning? Where hushed whimpering is heard? Where white shadows steal through the darkness? Where the presence of evil is all around you? Would you?  Should you? The Caleighs did, but they had their reasons. They should have known better.

Buy them at Amazon.

In Michael Marshall’s thriller KILLER MOVE, Bill Moore has it all. Until one morning, he arrives at work to find a card waiting for him, with no indication who it’s from or why it was sent. Its message is just one word: “modified.” When things begin to unwind rapidly, and one after another, people around Bill start to die, it becomes increasingly clear that someone somewhere has a very different plan for his future. We have one copy to give away.

To enter:
1. E-mail us your name and mailing address (U.S. only; no P.O. boxes) with “Your move, creep” as the subject line, to editor at bookgasm dot com.
2. Await Friday, July 22, when we announce the randomly chosen winners.
3. Or, just buy it at Amazon.

What’s been going on at our sister site, Flick Attack, “hitting you with one random movie a day … whether you like it or not”? Here’s what you’ve missed:

• The best “low-budget slasher/Goth musical co-starring Paris Hilton” ever made, REPO! THE GENETIC OPERA
• The Japanese horror film UZUMAKI, which “will make your head spin … but not necessarily in a good way.”
• How bad is MONSTER HIGH? “Even if I hate you, I hope you never have to see it.”
• The ’80s giallo THE SPIDER LAYBRINTH, which is “kind of like ARACHNOPHOBIA meets … oh, a craft services table with three kinds of tortellini”
• Gregg Henry in the actioner THE PATRIOT, which is like “someone tried to make an Andy Sidaris movie without any of the good parts”
• a horrifying image from the ’60s frothy comedy GET YOURSELF A COLLEGE GIRL

How many more reasons do you need?

She’s back each Tuesday, pimpin’ out notable new releases to place on your radar, so let the tempting, publisher-provided plot descriptions begin!

THE SWINGER by Michael Bamberger and Alan Shipnuck — The most famous athlete in the world has gotten himself into a bit of trouble. Maybe you heard? In this wild and deliciously mischievous novel, two veteran SPORTS ILLUSTRATED writers take us between the ropes and the sheets of the PGA Tour to chronicle the epic rise, astonishing collapse and uproarious comeback attempt of the greatest golfer of our time, Herbert X. “Tree” Tremont.

THE GUILTY PLEA by Robert Rotenberg — On the morning his high-profile divorce trial is set to begin, Terrance Wyler, the youngest son of Toronto’s Wyler Food dynasty, is found stabbed to death in the kitchen of his luxurious home. Detective Ari Greene arrives minutes before the press and finds Wyler’s 4-year-old son asleep upstairs. Hours later, when Wyler’s wife, Samantha, shows up at her lawyer’s office with a bloody knife wrapped in a towel, the case looks like a straightforward guilty plea. Instead, an open-and-shut case becomes a complex murder trial, full of spite and uncertainty.

DEAD IRON: THE AGE OF STEAM by Devon Monk — In steam-age America, men, monsters, machines and magic battle for the same scrap of earth and sky. In this chaos, bounty hunter Cedar Hunt rides, cursed by lycanthropy and carrying the guilt of his brother’s death. Then he’s offered hope that his brother may yet survive. All he has to do is find the Holder: a powerful device created by mad devisers, and now in the hands of an ancient Strange who was banished to walk this Earth. In a land shaped by magic, steam and iron, where the only things a man can count on are his guns, gears and grit, Cedar will have to depend on all three.

GRAVE DANCE by Kalayna Price — After a month of down time, Grave Witch Alex Craft is ready to get back to solving murders by raising the dead. With her love life in turmoil, Alex is eager for the distractions of work. But when her new case forces her to overuse her magic, it might be the last mystery the Grave Witch ever gets to solve …

CONAN THE BARBARIAN by Michael Stackpole — Born in the fires of battle, Conan of Cimmeria lost his father and village when they were slaughtered by the cruel warlord Khalra Zym. Wandering the world alone, Conan was forged into a peerless warrior by hardship and bloodshed. Years later, he crosses paths with Zym and his armies. But before Conan can exact vengeance, he must contend with the warlord’s daughter — the seductive witch, Marique — and a host of monstrous creatures. Only then will Conan’s quest bring him face to gave with Zym in an epic battle to avenge his people and save the world.

CITADELS OF THE LOST by Tracy Hickman — The fates of Drakis, former slave warrior of the elven empire of Rhonas, and Soen, former Inquisitor of the Iblisi, are inexorably tied to the magic of Aether, lifeblood of the elven empire and the cause of humanity’s fall. As each searches for the truth beyond legends, he must face his own destiny: Drakis amid the ruins of humanity’s Lost Citadels; Soen in a desperate race to seize control of the farthest Aether Well of the empire …

BETRAYAL OF TRUST by J.A. Jance — At first glance, the video appears to be showing a childish game: a teenage girl with dark wavy hair smiles for the camera, a blue scarf tied around her neck. All of a sudden things turn murderous, and the girl ends up dead. It’s as bad as a snuff film can get, and what’s worse, the clip has been discovered on a phone that belongs to the grandson of Washington State’s governor. However, the boy, who has a troubled background, swears that he’s never seen the victim before.

VINTAGE CONNOR: THE BLONDE IN THE LOTUS ELITE by Robert Baty — When Connor wore a badge, he drove a Crown Vic down Oakland’s meanest streets. Now he pilots a vintage Alfa Romeo and finds rare classic cars. Inevitably, he also finds trouble. The trouble starts when Evie, an old flame, wants Connor to learn the truth about her daughter, who was found dead in a motel during Monterey’s annual classic car weekend. The inquest said it was suicide. But Evie thinks it was murder. As his investigation proceeds, he finds himself caught between deception and desire, and knows that both are true.

CREEP by Jennifer Hillier — Ethan has plans for Sheila, plans that involve posting a sex video that would surely get her fired and destroy her career. Plans to make her pay for rejecting him. And as she attempts to counter his every threatening move without her colleagues or her fiancé discovering her most intimate secrets, a shattering crime rocks Puget Sound State University: a female student, a star athlete, is found stabbed to death. Someone is raising the stakes of violence, sex, and blackmail, and before she knows it, Sheila is caught in a terrifying cat-and-mouse game with the lover she couldn’t resist … who is now the monster who won’t let her go.

THE YEAR’S BEST SCIENCE FICTION: TWENTY-EIGHTH ANNUAL COLLECTION edited by Gardner Dozois — This venerable collection brings together award-winning authors and masters of the field such as Robert Reed, Alastair Reynolds, Damien Broderick, Carrie Vaughn, Ian R. MacLeod and Cory Doctorow. And with an extensive recommended reading guide and a summation of the year in science fiction, this annual compilation has become the definitive must-read anthology for all science-fiction fans and readers interested in breaking into the genre.

Buy them at Amazon.

What’s been going on at our sister site, Flick Attack, “hitting you with one random movie a day … whether you like it or not”? Here’s what you’ve missed:

• The “now markedly puffy” Steven Seagal in EXIT WOUNDS
• 1942′s TO BE OR NOT TO BE, an “outrageously funny” comedy in Nazi-occupied Poland
• Raymond Burr in BRIDE OF THE GORILLA, “as cheesy as other monkey movies of the era, but twice as routine”
• JACKIE CHAN’S CRIME FORCE, featuring “severed limbs, a rat pierced with a chopstick and a fat guy named, well, Fatty”
• “Why doesn’t this turd have the words National Lampoon in its title?” we ask of BOAT TRIP
• BEYOND RE-ANIMATOR, whose closing credits include a “fight between the rat and the penis”
• VIDEO WARS, an ’80s comedy so obscure “it doesn’t even exist, according to the Internet Movie Database”
• “The most hardcore rape/revenge picture ever made,” THRILLER: A CRUEL PICTURE
• Slasher entry THE INITIATION, “a far better film than it has any right to be”

How many more reasons do you need?

She’s back each Tuesday, pimpin’ out notable new releases to place on your radar, so let the tempting plot descriptions begin!

THE 34TH DEGREE by Thomas Greanias — 1943: The supernatural alchemy for the ultimate weapon, encoded in an ancient biblical text, has fallen into the hands of the most ruthless secret society known to man: the Nazi SS. Present Day: Dishonorably discharged from the armed forces, Sam Deker is trying to build a new life in Los Angeles. But nightmares of the past continue to haunt his present, and Deker discovers that the unusual lightwave-induced torture he barely survived has changed him. The Pentagon, however, believes that change makes him the only one who can endure their top-secret neuro-simulation program known as the 34th Degree.

BIRTH OF THE KINGDOM by Jan Guillou — Exiled from his home and the woman he loves, Arn de Gotha became one of the fiercest and most feared warriors of the Knights Templar. But now that Jerusalem has been lost to the man who saved him — his longtime enemy and trusted friend, Saladin — the weary nobleman, ravaged by wounds and illness, can finally return to his beloved Sweden. During his 20 years of exile, warring clans have torn Arn’s homeland apart. Determined to reunite it, he sets off with a band of skilled craftsmen and doctors from the Holy Land whose talents and knowledge are unknown to the northern world.

THE COLLECTIVE by Jack Rogan — In a quiet community outside Fort Myers, Fla., a home invasion and murder draw a crowd of feds. No one is aware that this killing is part of a vast, chilling conspiracy. After all, the victims were just an ordinary family. Former FBI agents Josh Hart and Rachael Voss spearhead the investigation, following a trail of seemingly accidental deaths. Then, in a tranquil Boston suburb, someone comes after the 7-month-old daughter of Gulf War vet Caitlin McCandless. Cait has combat training and knowledge of a shocking secret — and she’ll need both to save her daughter’s life.

THE GENESIS KEY by James Barney — More than three decades ago, Dr. Kathleen Sainsbury’s archaeologist parents were murdered at an ancient excavation site in Iraq. Now the gifted biologist stands on the brink of a miraculous breakthrough: the discovery of a gene that could extend a human life by hundreds of years. But at the moment of her greatest triumph, a mysterious phone call reveals a hidden truth that draws chaos and violence once again into Kathleen’s world … and threatens to irreversibly alter the destiny of humankind.

MEN, WOMEN & CHILDREN by Chad Kultgen — Kultgen explores the sexual pressures at work on a handful of troubled, conflicted junior-high students and their equally dysfunctional parents. From porn-surfing fathers to WORLD OF WARCRAFT-obsessed sons, from competitive cheerleaders to their dissatisfied, misguided mothers, Kultgen clicks open the emotionally treacherous culture in which we live.

Buy them at Amazon.

What’s been going on at our sister site, Flick Attack, “hitting you with one random movie a day … whether you like it or not”? Here’s what you’ve missed:

• Wesley Snipes stars in the pulpy “White House whodunit” MURDER AT 1600
• Asia’s SO CLOSE is like CHARLIE’S ANGELS, except its characters “are not braying-donkey annoying”
• Going Greek with LAND OF THE MINOTAUR, starring Peter Cushing, Donald Pleasence and villagers in “blue, silky KKK outfits”
• The beard-growing documentary GROWIN’ A BEARD, which “could have been, um, trimmed”
• SWIMMING POOL, a French thriller that’s only decent, “despite loads of young-French-blonde nudity”

How many more reasons do you need?

Thriller author James Rollins is back with THE DEVIL COLONY, another electrifying combination of suspense, history, science, action and ingenious speculation. In the novel, Sigma Force stalwarts Painter Crowe and Cmdr. Grayson Pierce must investigate a gruesome massacre in the Rocky Mountains, and root out a secret cabal that has been manipulating momentous events since the time of the original 13 colonies.

We have two autographed copies to give away, going to:
• Sandy Johnson of Ludington, Mich.
• Keith Prochaska of Holdingford, Minn.

Buy it at Amazon.

She’s back each Tuesday, pimpin’ out notable new releases to place on your radar, so let the tempting plot descriptions begin!

AMONG THE MISSING by Morag Joss — When a bridge collapses in the Highlands of Scotland, dozens of commuters vanish into the freezing river below, and only an amateur video and the bridge’s security camera record their last moments. A woman tourist, whose car was filmed pulling onto the bridge seconds before it fell, is assumed to be among the missing. But she had sold the car only hours before. Now she can begin life over. Her path leads her to a spartan cabin on the bank of the river where, as Annabel, she is reborn, free from her past, clinging to hope against overwhelming evidence.

WATCH ME DIE by Erica Spindler — Before Hurricane Katrina struck, stained-glass restoration artist Mira Gallier had it all: a thriving business and an idyllic marriage. But the devastating storm stole her beloved husband — his body swept away by floodwaters, never to be found. Now, after years of pain and turmoil, it looks as if Mira is finally on the verge of peace and emotional stability. But her life, like the magnificent windows blown to bits by Hurricane Katrina, is about to be shattered once again. And this time, it’s not a killer storm she faces, but a psychopath who will stop at nothing until he possesses her, body and soul.

THE PLAIN MAN by Steve Englehart — Max August is not invulnerable, but he never ages — a gift he earned while studying under the legendary alchemist Cornelius Agrippa. August, now an alchemist himself, is using his magickal abilities to fight the right-wing conspiracy known as the FRC, which seeks to control all aspects of society. At the top of the FRC is a nine-member cabal, each member of which is a powerful force in one area of society, such as media, politics, finance … and wizardry.

REVENGER by Rory Clements — Shakespeare is summoned by Elizabeth’s cold but deadly Privy Councillor Sir Robert Cecil and ordered to undertake two linked missions: to investigate the mystery of the doomed Roanoke colony in North America — Sir Walter Ralegh’s folly — and to spy on Cecil’s rival, the dashing Earl of Essex. When Shakespeare enters Essex’s dissolute world, he discovers not only that the Queen herself is in danger, but that he and his family are also targets.

THE CLOCKWORK ROCKET by Greg Egan — In Yalda’s universe, light has no universal speed and its creation generates energy. On Yalda’s world, plants make food by emitting their own light into the dark night sky. As a child, Yalda witnesses one of a series of strange meteors, the Hurtlers, that are entering the planetary system at an immense, unprecedented speed. It becomes apparent that her world is in imminent danger — and the task of dealing with the Hurtlers will require knowledge and technology far beyond anything her civilization has yet achieved!

Buy them at Amazon.

Thriller author James Rollins is back with THE DEVIL COLONY, another electrifying combination of suspense, history, science, action and ingenious speculation. In the novel, Sigma Force stalwarts Painter Crowe and Cmdr. Grayson Pierce must investigate a gruesome massacre in the Rocky Mountains, and root out a secret cabal that has been manipulating momentous events since the time of the original 13 colonies. We have two autographed copies to give away.

To enter:
1. E-mail us your name and mailing address (U.S. only; no P.O. boxes) with “Devil may care” as the subject line, to editor at bookgasm dot com.
2. Await Friday, June 24, when we announce the randomly chosen winners.
3. Or, just buy it at Amazon.

What’s been going on at our sister site, Flick Attack, “hitting you with one random movie a day … whether you like it or not”? Here’s what you’ve missed:

• The slasher GIRLS NIGHT OUT, which “shows a remarkable ability to fuck up on virtually every technical level”
• Crikey! THE CROCODILE HUNTER: COLLISION COURSE, “livened up only by the prospect of seeing Steve have his face penetrated with poison-dripping fangs” 
• THE THIN MAN, which “actually has a damn good mystery” in addition to all that boozing
• That lack of logic in SEVEN DEATHS IN THE CAT’S EYE? “Blame it on the pussy.”
• LAS VEGAS LADY, a heist thriller starring Stella Stevens’ “pendulous breasts.”
• five movies we saw in theaters in 1999, yet barely remember

How many more reasons do you need?

Before the Tudors, there were the Borgias. More passionate. More dangerous. More deadly. In the new-to-paperback historical thriller by Sara Poole, THE BORGIA BETRAYAL, Borgia court poisoner Francesca Giordano must battle the demons of her own dark nature to unravel a plot to destroy the Borgias, seize control of Christendom, and plunge the world into eternal darkness. From the hidden crypts of 15th-century Rome to its teeming streets alive with sensuality, obsession and treachery, Francesca conceives a plan that hurls her into a nightmare confrontation with a madman.

We have two copies to give away, going to:
• Susan McCulloch of Carson City, Nev.
• Jessica Chambers of Providence, R.I.

buy it at Amazon.

She’s back each Tuesday, pimpin’ out notable new releases to place on your radar, so let the tempting plot descriptions begin!

THE GLASS DEMON by Helen Grant — Teenager Lin Fox is a stranger in a strange land: Germany, where her father has come on a quixotic quest to locate a priceless artifact. The medieval (and possibly mythical) Allerheiligen stained glass is believed by some to be lost, by others to have been destroyed, and by virtually all to be haunted. A mysterious letter persuades Dr. Oliver Fox that he can be the one to find it, but someone else is determined to ensure that the glass stays hidden forever. As her life comes to resemble the grimmest of fairy tales, Lin realizes that what she must find is not only the truth about the legendary glass but a way to save the lives of those she loves.

THE PROFESSION by Steven Pressfield — Force Insertion is the world’s merc monopoly. Its leader is the disgraced former U.S. Marine General James Salter, stripped of his command by the president for nuclear saber-rattling with the Chinese and banished to the Far East. A grandmaster military and political strategist, Salter deftly seizes huge oil and gas fields, ultimately making himself the most powerful man in the world. His endgame is to take vengeance on those responsible for his exile and then come home … as Commander in Chief. The only man who can stop him is Gilbert Gentilhomme, his most loyal foot soldier.

HUSH by Nancy Bush — In the summer before their senior year, around a campfire on a foggy June night, Coby, Yvette and friends share their darkest secrets, before a tragic accident shatters the bond between them. Twelve years later, Coby attends a reunion that ends in horror when Yvette’s sister’s lifeless body is discovered in a hot tub. Soon, others in the original group of tale-tellers begin meeting similar fates — unfortunate “accidents” shrinking their numbers one by one. Coby races to unravel the mystery, but someone is watching her every move — someone prepared to kill again and again to protect the shocking truth.

Buy them at Amazon.

Before the Tudors, there were the Borgias. More passionate. More dangerous. More deadly. In the new-to-paperback historical thriller by Sara Poole, THE BORGIA BETRAYAL, Borgia court poisoner Francesca Giordano must battle the demons of her own dark nature to unravel a plot to destroy the Borgias, seize control of Christendom, and plunge the world into eternal darkness. From the hidden crypts of 15th-century Rome to its teeming streets alive with sensuality, obsession and treachery, Francesca conceives a plan that hurls her into a nightmare confrontation with a madman. We have two copies to give away.

To enter:
1. E-mail us your name and mailing address (U.S. only; no P.O. boxes) with “Not starring Jeremy Irons” as the subject line, to editor at bookgasm dot com.
2. Await Friday, June 17, when we announce the randomly chosen winners.
3. Or, just buy it at Amazon.

What’s been going on at our sister site, Flick Attack, “hitting you with one random movie a day … whether you like it or not”? Here’s what you’ve missed:

• KILLER WORKOUT, “nothing more than 30-plus minutes of absurdly sexualized workout footage”
• The Asylum’s mockbuster ALMIGHTY THOR, “a mind-numbingly loco version of the classic Norse myths”
• “Shit blows up in this Thai-shot actioner. And by ‘shit,’ I mean people.” That’s Dolph Lundgren’s MEN OF WAR, yo.
• DEATHROW GAMESHOW, an ’80s comedy with a strip number titled “Dance of the Seven Boners”
• The “absolutely dreadful, no-budget horror anthology” CREEPTALES

How many more reasons do you need?

She’s back each Tuesday, pimpin’ out notable new releases to place on your radar, so let the tempting plot descriptions begin!

THE TRANSFORMATION OF BARTHOLOMEW FORTUNO by Ellen Bryson — Bartholomew Fortuno, the World’s Thinnest Man, believes that his unusual body is a gift. Hired by none other than P.T. Barnum to work at his spectacular American Museum — a modern marvel of macabre displays and live performances by Barnum’s cast of freaks and oddities — Fortuno has reached the pinnacle of his career. But after a decade of solid performance, he finds his contentment flagging. When a carriage pulls up outside the Museum in the dead of night, bearing Barnum and a mysterious veiled woman — rumored to be a new performer — Fortuno’s curiosity is piqued.

FOR HEAVEN’S EYES ONLY by Simon R. Green — After the murder of the Drood Matriarch, the family finds itself vulnerable to evil. This time, it’s a Satanic Conspiracy that could throw humanity directly into the clutches of the Biggest of the Bads. This is fifth Eddie Drood novel in the series.

TERMINAL WORLD by Alastair Reynolds — Spearpoint, the last human city, is an atmosphere-piercing spire of vast size. Clinging to its skin are the zones, a series of semi-autonomous city-states, each of which enjoys a different and rigidly enforced level of technology. Following an infiltration mission that went tragically wrong, Quillon has been living incognito, working as a pathologist in the district morgue. But when a near-dead angel drops onto his dissecting table, Quillon’s world is wrenched apart one more time, for the angel is a winged posthuman from Spearpoint’s Celestial Levels, and with the dying body comes bad news.

HEX by Allen Steele — The danui, a reclusive arachnid species considered the galaxy’s finest engineers, have avoided contact with the Coyote Federation. Until, that is, the danui initiate trade negotiations, offering only information: the coordinates for an unoccupied world suitable for human life-a massive sphere, composed of billions of hexagons. But when the Federation’s recon mission goes terribly wrong, the humans realize how little they know about their new partners.

THE STRONGER SEX by Hans Werner Kettenbach — Young lawyer Alexander Zabel has been pressured by the head of his law practice into defending the indefensible: a lying, power obsessed adulterer and ruthless industrialist accused of wrongfully dismissing his assistant and mistress. She is 34; he, 78: a despot who has always had his way, now wheelchair-bound and dying of cancer. Alex must deal with a hopeless case, his growing sympathy for a repulsive client, and his sexual attraction to Klofft’s elderly wife.

UNNATURAL ISSUE by Mercedes Lackey — Richard Whitestone is an Elemental Earth Master. Blaming himself for the death of his beloved wife in childbirth, he has sworn never to set eyes on his daughter, Suzanne. But when he finally sees her, a dark plan takes shape in his twisted mind-to use his daughter’s body to bring back the spirit of his long-dead wife.

YEAR’S BEST SF 16 edited by David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer — The finest selections from a banner year for short-form science fiction, this compilation from acclaimed, award-winning editors and anthologists David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer contains brilliant visions, both dark and hopeful, of what might await humankind over tomorrow’s horizon. Contributors include Gregory Benford, Joe Haldeman, Kay Kenyon, Alastair Reynolds, Michael Swanwick, Vernor Vinge and others.

SKINNERS: THE BREAKING by Marcus Pelegrimas — Shapeshifters, vampires and all manner of monstrosities are raining hell down on a small Western town, which is why Skinner Paige Strobel is headed there with a band of Old World Skinners who have been battling monsters for centuries using antiquated, yet oddly effective weaponry. Meanwhile, Paige’s sometime-partner/sometime-lover Cole Warnecki is being held prisoner by persons — or things — unknown: framed, tortured, and beaten for the slaughter of cops at a vampire warehouse in Denver.

Buy them at Amazon.

Just in time for summer, Kent Crowley’s SURF BEAT: ROCK ‘N’ ROLL’S FORGOTTEN REVOLUTION is out from Backbeat Books. Here’s the prologue.

HUNTINGTON BEACH, CA, WINTER 1998: Wet-suited surfers, bouncing surfboards off their skulls, dart between speeding cars and splash across Pacific Coast Highway toward the beach, as angry clouds boiling overhead spatter the sidewalks of Surf City with the first winter bursts of El Niño.

In the doorway of the Huntington Beach International Surfing Museum, located a short walk from the crashing storm surf, the cream of the three waves of surf bands, such as The Nomads, The Nocturnes, and The Wedge, cluster in the doorway. They part like the Red Sea as musicians shoulder their way through the throng and dash toward waiting vans, sheltering from the rain priceless vintage Fender amplifiers and guitars built before much of their audience was born.

Huddling in the doorway and regaling one another with tales of ancient surfer venues, older surf-rats pass on the lore of this strange, powerful, nearly forgotten music to younger acolytes. Some 35 years after the summer of surf, another tide of interest in surf music — instrumental or, the surfers argue, “real” surf music — had risen into a third wave after it was reported that filmmaker Quentin Tarantino had envisioned the plot to PULP FICTION while listening to a tape of instrumental surf-music classics in an Amsterdam hashish den. In the wake of PULP FICTION’s massive success, Hollywood and independent filmmakers had scrambled to inject long-forgotten surf classics into a new spate of urban films, and a new generation of musicians had discovered the sound.

The practitioners of this lost art find this new enthusiasm for instro surf music bittersweet. Over the decades, the coastal faithful have preserved the style as a genuine indigenous folk music, much as Chicago embraces electric blues or New Orleans preserves Dixieland. The PULP FICTION-inspired interest in the form, they agree, served to vindicate their passion for, and belief in, surf music. Yet, they view this latest influx of interest in the same manner as they would regard a crowd of neophyte surfers invading their secret surfing spots: as much violation as validation.

However, today in the Surf Museum in Surf City, all are among friends: different generations burying ancient hatchets to share a day of celebration. Kids who discovered this strange new music in air-conditioned suburban cineplexes are treated to dusty tales of underage aspiring guitarists turned away from the door of the old Rendezvous Ballroom in Balboa, who then hunkered beneath cracked windows to feel the walls pulse and throb to the thunder of Dick Dale, Eddie & The Showmen, The Tornadoes, The Lively Ones, and others, while waves rumbled against the Balboa Pier in the distance.

They hear of the time before Hendrix and heavy metal, when The Challengers raided a Fender display at a teen fair to introduce Chuck Berry to the joys of power and volume by plugging him into the surfers’ choice: the granddaddy of stack amplifiers, the Fender Showman. In the midst of one long, impromptu blasting jam, Berry’s visage of childlike joy and abandon suddenly convulsed into cold fear. “What song,” the terrified Berry shouted to Challengers guitarist Ed Fournier and drummer Richard Delvy, “are we playing?”

They speak in hushed whispers of the magical, mysterious circuit the great music pioneer Leo Fender personally designed for Dick “The Showman” Dale’s amplifier; and of how Leo died before he could commit his design to paper, carrying his secret to the grave.

Original Chantays and Nocturnes saxophonist Jim Frias reveals the surf equivalent of photos of blues legend Robert Johnson: action shots and setlists of one of the rarest of rare surf groups, The Nocturnes. It was The Nocturnes’ 1963 impressionistic space odyssey, “Third Star to the Left,” some embittered surf rats insist, that inspired Jimi Hendrix’s 1967 impressionistic space odyssey, “Third Stone from the Sun,” in which Hendrix intones “you’ll never hear surf music again.”

The phrase still stings after three decades, more for its perceived treason than its disrespect. Many credit Jimi’s days spent hanging out with Dick Dale at Dale’s Del-Tone record shop in Balboa, during a pre-Experience stay, with his introduction to the surfers’ concept of amplifier-as-instrument.

One young surfer who stumbled onto instro surf by accident tells of angrily confronting his baby boomer parents. “Why,” he demanded, wide-eyed, “didn’t you tell me about this music?”

The voices wither to a hush. Necks crane to witness the emergence of Himself: the King Of The Surf Guitar, Dick Dale. Originally scheduled to make an appearance like a head of state, in a vintage woody, Dale instead casually strolls down Olive Avenue accompanied by his son, proudly announcing from a half-block away that the prince, five-year-old Jimmy (named after Dale’s father and producer James Monsour) bagged his first waves earlier that morning. “That’s waves,” Dale beams, emphasizing the plural.

In an adjacent parking lot, the patron saint of surf’s second wave quietly pulls his car into the lot and begins unloading his equipment. One shocked guitarist rushes to the side of the car and demands he be allowed to assist. John Blair — a distinguished writer and historian, the Jon of Jon & The Nightriders, and the man who discovered and first delivered instrumental surf music as a classical experience — shrugs. “Sure,” he says, gratefully.

The weather is unforgiving, and the erstwhile roadie gasps as he and Blair grapple and then gently wheel through the parking lot the same classic Dual Showman amplifier, Fender Reverb Unit, and ’57 Stratocaster guitar that grace nearly all of Blair’s award-winning LPs: the canon of work that demanded the world finally recognize its first electronic music revolution, and California its first modern indigenous folk music.

Inside, The Nightriders — a virtual supergroup of modern surf — quickly arrange their arsenal, ready to mark Blair’s quarter-century of proselytizing surf music, as his brother Richard commands the sound console. Richard, too, respects this music’s heritage. He resists the impulse to correct with electronic wizardry the acoustic nightmare that the Huntington Beach Surfing Museum becomes as it quickly absorbs the crush of humanity. He demands the bands recreate the music as it is meant to be heard: buck-naked and sweat-glistening, with slashing guitars and throbbing basses roaring through massive amplifiers cranked to maximum volume. He offers the band two microphones to announce their selections and no more. Jon & The Nightriders nod in agreement. The air is their canvas; they don’t need no stinkin’ mics.

When Blair ascends the ramp, armed with his beloved Stratocaster, the crowd tramples to the lip of the makeshift stage. Guitarists elbow their way to the front. The heat rises, and the condensation offers a slight flavor of an old-time ‘battle of the bands’ in a high-school gym.

Hearing the guitarists inside snap preliminary chords, a decidedly and unrepentantly heterosexual male crowd outside abandons the vaunted Hooters girls to their booth in the parking lot to indulge in a full set of the original experience. The Hooters girls, too, weave their way into the crowd to worship at the altar.

Blair nods to The Nightriders. Bassist Pete Curry nods to rhythm guitarist Dave Wronski. Drummer Dusty Watson snaps off the count: one, two, three … BAM! Sonic tsunamis rise, crest, and smash into the crowd, drenching the listeners with the drip, pop, and sizzle of old tube reverbs and tremolos, spraying them with the machine-gun licks that inspired the first generation of lightboard surfers to claim this music as their own. The Nightriders churn the modest museum into wild rides at Maverick’s followed by bone-crunching wipeouts at the Wedge.

Dale, who had earlier held court in the parking lot to protect young Jimmy’s ears, ducks into the crowd through a back door and is swallowed by the throng as Blair pauses to dedicate Dale’s surf classic, “Shake ’N’ Stomp,” to his mentor.

Before the crowd sucks in another breath, Blair launches into an obscure nugget from his award-winning Fiberglass Rocket CD: “Hurricane,” a rare Conrad & The Hurricane Strings’ instrumental produced by a then-unknown Frank Zappa and his mentor Paul Buff. In the early ’60s, the transplanted Indonesian surf gods enraptured a teenage John Blair during sidewalk gigs at a music store near his home in Montclair, California, while their future producer Zappa watched on from his apartment across the street.

As The Nightriders blast from one selection to another, Blair makes it clear he is still more than rock’n’roll’s first classical guitarist. Guitar players huddle before the master, straining to divine his chord voicings and his picking and fingering techniques. He is the university of surf music and this is Modern Guitar 101. Each note, each beat inspires in the guitarists the same adoration as the flawless bikini-clad surfer girls of Brian Wilson’s fantasies.

Pausing one final time as the crowd laps up the last vestiges of unsullied air, the apostles of instro commit what would be heresy from any other surf band as Watson launches into the signature drum lick that The Beach Boys’ “Don’t Worry Baby” shares with Phil Spector’s “Be My Baby.” The Beach Boys are still a subject of controversy in the surfing community. This is the world of instro, where anthems are anathema and the music celebrates power, raw sexuality, and mystery. To many, The Beach Boys proffered the ‘Hollywood version’ of surf that encouraged a lemming-like invasion of dilettantes to beaches in the early 60s. Some feel it corrupted the sport forever, infesting the South and Orange coasts with what real surfers scorned as “rubes on tubes.”

Abandoning his Stratocaster, Blair rings in the celestial opening chords on his Rickenbacker 12-string. The band reclaims the two anthems from the carpeted studios of urban Hollywood to the shimmering beaches of California’s coast and the simmering southwestern deserts sprawling between the foothills of the Santa Ana, San Bernardino, Santa Monica, and San Gabriel mountain ranges, wastelands transformed by technology into a dubious Eden.

While a lesser surf band would now be smoothing tar to accommodate fresh layers of feathers, The Nightriders reveal a sacred music in these two teen anthems, with Blair and Wronski coaxing hosts of angels from the complex chord changes with their mastery of surf techniques. The interplay of the two guitars marries the melodies as surf mixes with jazz. Octaves, block chords, and streaming glissandos conjure up surreal aural images of Wes Montgomery in huarache sandals blasting a solid body through a stack. In the world of surf, this collision of old and new worlds unleashes new universes of beauty and, after 40-odd years, all is forgiven.

A final shimmering note withers in the air and The Nightriders abandon a crowd deliciously weak-kneed and spent from an afternoon of being engulfed by an idiom that was by all accounts a dead issue a third of a century earlier.

The murmur in the museum rises again as an invigorated Dick Dale snaps the switch on the amplifier that is the holy grail to modern electric guitarists. The audience watches as Dale clicks condemned picks into a plastic magazine affixed to the metal-flake gold Stratocaster whose image adorns the walls of a new generation of “aggro” guitarists — teenagers when they rediscovered The Godfather Of Heavy Metal via the opening scene of PULP FICTION. The gentle, beaming father, who helped his beloved son negotiate the waves only hours before, shows no quarter as his music transforms him into a merciless warlord. Blair’s unrelenting bombardment smashed all resistance; now it’s up to the king to reclaim his throne. Dale dons his metal-flake armor and snarls out the opening licks signaling the final assault, where he’ll abandon a stage littered with the debris of “melted” guitar picks.

As Dale’s patented machine-gun licks sputter though the din, spatter the walls, and roar into the street, old-timers, young converts, museum leaders, and historians gather under clearing skies outside. Bemoaning the fact that this music enjoys little cultural recognition except as an unexplained blip on popular music’s radar screen, they conspire a suitable recognition.

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