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Ask the Staff: Our Favorite Halloween Reads

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, EVERYONE!!!! It’s our absolute favorite time of year and we’re excited for candy, costumes, and curling up with a scary book. We wanted some recommendations on what to read and asked the experts what their go-to creepy books are. And by experts, we mean our terrific and terrifying staff. Check out their best Halloween picks here!


image-39122Kristin Temple, Associate Editor

My go-to Halloween/Spooky Season read is Stephen King’s IT. Every few years, as the weather starts to cool off, I’ll transport myself back to Derry and watch gleefully as the Losers throw rocks at bullies, face their fears, and save their town. Something about the coming-of-age themes and the epic battle against evil really puts me in the Halloween spirit.

image-29826Jordan Hanley, Marketing Manager

Halloween is not only one entire season on the calendar, it is also an entire ~mood~. Working on Nightfire titles means that I get to think about Halloween as others think about Christmas– i.e. all year long! Since I joined the Nightfire team, I first dipped my toe and then completely submerged myself in the horror genre. I’ve been a diehard Constant Reader of Stephen King for as long as I can remember, but luckily for me, I am surrounded by horror fans who have expanded my view of what horror can be.
A few recent Halloween atmospheric reads have been:
The Family Plot by Cherie Priest and Halloween Season by Lucy A. Snyder.
The Family Plot takes place in a haunted house that bites back. I recently moved and had been hunting down antiques and gently used furniture up and down the Jersey shore. The Family Plot centers around a gold-mine– a house left untouched in the boonies. As I was furniture hunting, I constantly wished I could have been in this house! But without all the horrible things that happen in it.
Halloween Season by Lucy A. Snyder is a collection of short stories by the author of one of my most anticipated forthcoming Nightfire books. Lucy is an incredibly talented writer, and these fun-sized stories are perfect for curling up on the couch with on a chilly October night.

image-39125Julia Bergen, Marketing Manager

I don’t actually have a go-to Halloween book, because I very rarely reread books, I always want something new! So at Halloween I usually pick out something scary/autumnal that I haven’t read yet. I really love Tor.com novellas for this, since they’re quick and can fit into my reading routine, like The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle, The Monster of Elendhaven by Jennifer Giesbrecht, or The Atrocities by Jeremy C. Shipp.

image-39126Theresa Delucci, Senior Marketing Director

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson is a horror classic for a reason and I return to it frequently, but for the last few years I’ve been revisiting its modern spiritual descendant, A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay. When the leaves change color and the sky gets gloomy, any falling-apart house in New England could contain a falling-apart family like the Barretts. Is teenager Marjorie very sick or very possessed? Things only get worse and more terrifying and, seen through the eyes of Marjorie‘s clever kid sister Merry, you’re pulled into an ending that’s horrific, heartbreaking, and leaves you wondering what haunts every lonely soul.

image-39032Rachel Taylor, Marketing Manager

I’ve never had a go-to Halloween book before, but I’ve found one this year that I know is going to be my new yearly re-read—Slewfoot by Brom. If you loved 2015 film The Witch, this is 1000% the book for you. It’s also filled with some absolutely stunning yet creepy art, which I can’t help but keep flipping back to.

image-39034Lizzy Hosty, Marketing Intern

My go-to book for Halloween is any of the Series of Unfortunate Events books. I’ve been periodically working my way through them since I never read them as a kid, but obviously Halloween is the best time to read these creepy stories! I’m also really excited to read Nothing But Blackened Teeth, because I have been rocking the pre-order pop socket, and cannot wait to double that energy but holding the book in one hand and my phone in the other.

image-37538Angie Rao, Design

The Monster of Elendhaven!

It’s spooky and dark but also fun and short so you can read it and then eat some candy while you process your feelings.
What book are you most excited to read this Halloween? Let us know in the comments!

a cat, Marketing Coordinator 

 
This interactive necromantic legal thriller from Max Gladstone has something scarier than skeletons and demons: balancing cost of living, debt, career advancement, and life satisfaction (in addition to many skeletons and demons)! Pay off your loans! Make partner! Find a hot partner (if you want)! DIE! BE REBORN AS A DEATHLESS SKELETON! GO TO WORK ON MONDAY!
My transition into all caps is meant to reflect my all caps love for this game, that you should go play immediately. Also check out Deathless: The City’s Thirst, where after working with other mortal magic practitioners to depose a god, you must take on god’s task of procuring water for a desert city.

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Throwback Thursdays: The Best, Worst, and BESTWORST Stephen King Adaptations

Welcome to Throwback Thursdays on the Tor/Forge blog! Every other week, we’re delving into our newsletter archives and sharing some of our favorite posts.

On September 10th, Kendare Blake begins a brand new series with the first book in The Goddess Wars, Antigoddess. With Antigoddess, Kendare brings her talent for horror to a whole new world, so to celebrate, we thought we’d dip into our archives and share an article she wrote in August 2012, for the publication of Anna Dressed in Blood. Enjoy this blast from the past, and be sure to check back every other Thursday for more!

Placeholder of  -51

Written by Kendare Blake

A couple of months ago, a friend and I were talking about Stephen King adaptations (they were running Stephen King with Story Notes on AMC that week) and got to wondering exactly how many movies had been made from his work. We were able to name so many: Carrie, The Shining, The Stand, Cujo, Misery, The Tommyknockers, Hearts in Atlantis; we could go on and on.

“How many books has the guy written?” my friend wanted to know. “I wonder what percentage have been made into movies?”

So I said, let’s count. “And remember, it’s not only King novels, but short stories that have to be tallied. Movies have been made from short stories, too. 1408, for example. And we might want to track which works have been optioned for film without ever being produced.”

“You’re getting too involved in this,” my friend said.

Based on the rough and lazy count that followed, we arrived at this rough and lazy answer: Stephen King writes a lot of stuff, and a lot of that stuff gets made into movies. Pick up a short story collection, and somewhere inside, a film awaits. The novels are probably optioned before they’re even written. When will we see a movie version of Under The Dome or 11/22/63? The answer?

Someday. Probably. Odds are looking good.

This conversation got me thinking about the best and worst Stephen King adaptations, and I thought I’d share my list, including a special category for the BESTWORST adaptation. And oh yeah, there will probably be spoilers. Here we go.

THE BEST

Stand By Me

Raise your hand if you thought I was going to say The Shawshank Redemption. Ha! Well I didn’t. That would’ve been the obvious choice. Instead I say that this tale, adapted from King’s pensive novella “The Body” does all the things that King does best in his non-supernatural work: it studies the transitory nature of childhood friendships; short-lived but often the most memorable of your life. It’s a beautiful, careful film, carried along by genuine good times and undercut with the constant menace of knowing these kids are in real danger.

THE WORST

Dreamcatcher

Raise your hand if you thought I was going to say Maximum Overdrive. Well I didn’t. I like Maximum Overdrive. It’s hilarious.

No, my vote has to go to Dreamcatcher, a big pile of turd of a movie, complete with horrible CGI aliens that go up your butt and I don’t know, incubate until you poo them out again. If Ridley Scott’s aliens had taken this route, we would never have been able to watch Prometheus, because no other Alien movies would have been made.

Right now, Dreamcatcher is whispering in my ear about how good the acting was, by Jason Lee and Thomas Jane and Damian Lewis and heck, even Morgan Freeman. It’s telling me that the strong childhood friendships are back in abundance. But dammit, no, Dreamcatcher! Just, no.

THE BESTWORST

I was tempted to say Riding the Bullet, because it’s laughably watchable on a Sunday afternoon. And I do recommend you see it, because it’s great watching David Arquette try to make those scary faces. But in my mind, the BESTWORST Stephen King adaptation will always be the 1990 TV miniseries of IT.

I love IT. I own IT, and once a year I order Chinese food and watch IT, and eat right at the part where they get to the Chinese restaurant, because the eyeball in the fortune cookie always makes me giggle. It’s terrible, and fantastic, and features a pre-puberty Seth Green, and a just slightly post puberty John Boy Walton. Is it scary? Not exactly. But Tim Curry flashing between those hanging white bed sheets is undeniably one more reason to distrust clowns.

So there you have it. My list. With so many films based on King’s work, I expect that few will agree with my choices. I invite you to make your case for your own.

It’s important to note that this list is reflective of the movies only, not the works on which they were based. While I don’t doubt that these days King could have a lot of input on how his tales are adapted, I also don’t doubt that for many of these films he had little control, just like most authors. Someday, it would be cool if Anna Dressed in Blood was adapted, and I could be one of those no-control authors. But in case it doesn’t, here’s a short Best/Worst/BestWorst list of possibilities:

Best: Anna Dressed in Awesome: Directed by the dream team of Joss Whedon and Tim Burton, from an adapted screenplay by Neil Gaiman, a dark, visceral tale with undertones the book didn’t even think of and visuals to kill for.

Worst: Anna Dressed in a Red Dress: Anna reimagined as a 1940’s crime noir, in which Anna is a deranged socialite who murders her wealthy stepfather. Hard-boiled private detective Cas Lowood must run down the mystery in a dark coat and one of those hats. Starring an undiscovered Hemsworth brother and a rapidly aging Kardashian sister.

BestWorst: Anna Dressed in Blood: The Musical.

This article is originally from the August 2012 Tor/Forge newsletter. Sign up for the Tor/Forge newsletter now, and get similar content in your inbox twice a month!

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The Best, Worst, and BESTWORST Stephen King Adaptations

Tor/Forge Blog

Girl of Nightmares by Kendare Blake

Written by Kendare Blake

A couple of months ago, a friend and I were talking about Stephen King adaptations (they were running Stephen King with Story Notes on AMC that week) and got to wondering exactly how many movies had been made from his work. We were able to name so many: Carrie, The Shining, The Stand, Cujo, Misery, The Tommyknockers, Hearts in Atlantis; we could go on and on.

“How many books has the guy written?” my friend wanted to know. “I wonder what percentage have been made into movies?”

So I said, let’s count. “And remember, it’s not only King novels, but short stories that have to be tallied. Movies have been made from short stories, too. 1408, for example. And we might want to track which works have been optioned for film without ever being produced.”

“You’re getting too involved in this,” my friend said.

Based on the rough and lazy count that followed, we arrived at this rough and lazy answer: Stephen King writes a lot of stuff, and a lot of that stuff gets made into movies. Pick up a short story collection, and somewhere inside, a film awaits. The novels are probably optioned before they’re even written. When will we see a movie version of Under The Dome or 11/22/63? The answer?

Someday. Probably. Odds are looking good.

This conversation got me thinking about the best and worst Stephen King adaptations, and I thought I’d share my list, including a special category for the BESTWORST adaptation. And oh yeah, there will probably be spoilers. Here we go.

THE BEST

Stand By Me

Raise your hand if you thought I was going to say The Shawshank Redemption. Ha! Well I didn’t. That would’ve been the obvious choice. Instead I say that this tale, adapted from King’s pensive novella “The Body” does all the things that King does best in his non-supernatural work: it studies the transitory nature of childhood friendships; short-lived but often the most memorable of your life. It’s a beautiful, careful film, carried along by genuine good times and undercut with the constant menace of knowing these kids are in real danger.

THE WORST

Dreamcatcher

Raise your hand if you thought I was going to say Maximum Overdrive. Well I didn’t. I like Maximum Overdrive. It’s hilarious.

No, my vote has to go to Dreamcatcher, a big pile of turd of a movie, complete with horrible CGI aliens that go up your butt and I don’t know, incubate until you poo them out again. If Ridley Scott’s aliens had taken this route, we would never have been able to watch Prometheus, because no other Alien movies would have been made.

Right now, Dreamcatcher is whispering in my ear about how good the acting was, by Jason Lee and Thomas Jane and Damian Lewis and heck, even Morgan Freeman. It’s telling me that the strong childhood friendships are back in abundance. But dammit, no, Dreamcatcher! Just, no.

THE BESTWORST

I was tempted to say Riding the Bullet, because it’s laughably watchable on a Sunday afternoon. And I do recommend you see it, because it’s great watching David Arquette try to make those scary faces. But in my mind, the BESTWORST Stephen King adaptation will always be the 1990 TV miniseries of IT.

I love IT. I own IT, and once a year I order Chinese food and watch IT, and eat right at the part where they get to the Chinese restaurant, because the eyeball in the fortune cookie always makes me giggle. It’s terrible, and fantastic, and features a pre-puberty Seth Green, and a just slightly post puberty John Boy Walton. Is it scary? Not exactly. But Tim Curry flashing between those hanging white bed sheets is undeniably one more reason to distrust clowns.

So there you have it. My list. With so many films based on King’s work, I expect that few will agree with my choices. I invite you to make your case for your own.

It’s important to note that this list is reflective of the movies only, not the works on which they were based. While I don’t doubt that these days King could have a lot of input on how his tales are adapted, I also don’t doubt that for many of these films he had little control, just like most authors. Someday, it would be cool if Anna Dressed in Blood was adapted, and I could be one of those no-control authors. But in case it doesn’t, here’s a short Best/Worst/BestWorst list of possibilities:

Best: Anna Dressed in Awesome: Directed by the dream team of Joss Whedon and Tim Burton, from an adapted screenplay by Neil Gaiman, a dark, visceral tale with undertones the book didn’t even think of and visuals to kill for.

Worst: Anna Dressed in a Red Dress: Anna reimagined as a 1940’s crime noir, in which Anna is a deranged socialite who murders her wealthy stepfather. Hard-boiled private detective Cas Lowood must run down the mystery in a dark coat and one of those hats. Starring an undiscovered Hemsworth brother and a rapidly aging Kardashian sister.

BestWorst: Anna Dressed in Blood: The Musical.

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