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My friend from across the pond, Sean T. Page,  shot me a review copy of Metahorde.

This book sinks it’s teeth into you from the very first page and does not let go until the very last.  Even then it makes you wonder what’s going to happen next!

What is a Metahorde?  Well.. I don’t suppose I’m giving anything away here…  The horde itself is, of course, zombies.  Lots of zombies.  The meta part is.. well.. LOTS more..  As in millions.

Consider the size of a hurricane as it moves and swirls, replace the rain and wind with zombies and you have a hint as to what the Metahorde is.

Taking place in the year 2020, small pockets of civilization survive on the brink of starvation in a totally destroyed Europe. The zombies number well into the multiple of millions and roam vast dead zones (no pun intended). Make no mistake they are a force to be reckoned with, however, the zombies used to roam around haphazardly in random directions.  Something has happened that has made them organize together into massive hordes, that has made even the most sturdy structure crumble to the hungering march of the Metahorde.

When the throngs of zombies move through there is little to stop them.

Let’s pause for just a moment to ponder something..

The planet’s population is just under 7 billion.  Seven Billion.  7,000,000,000. New York has a population of about 8 million. United Kingdom; about 62 million. Paris; about 2 million.

Assume even a moderate outbreak of just 25% of the total population turns to zombies in the matter of a couple of weeks; that’s 1,750,000,000.  That’s a lot of zombies!  And we all know that there are many who simply won’t survive the initial outbreak, I’d venture to say that within a month at least 50% of the population will be zombies.  Given 6 months.. I’d almost say that only 15 to 20 percent of that initial 7 billion will still be among the living.

Are you pondering that yet?  Yeah, that’s a shit-load of zombies all hungry for your ass.

Now you get an idea of what Metahorde is all about.

It’s a page turner, no question there.

Then again, I tend to read these books more as manuals rather than for the fiction that some would claim them to be.

Hit up Amazon and order this puppy today, you won’t regret it.

You can get the paperback version HERE.

You can get the Kindle version HERE.

The Cabin in the Woods Project:

We are horror fans. We went to see The Cabin in the Woods back on April 13th, 2012 (yes it was also a Friday), we were blown away. It was something we had been hungry for, a good horror film. Good horror does not need to be all about blood and guts (although this film certainly has that), nor does it have to be all about cheap-jump-out-at-you-scares (think low music and a cat jumping out, it’s not scary, you are just responding to a loud noise). What a good horror film does is present an entertaining story. The Cabin in the Woods did that for us.

When I heard about this book, I ordered it first thing on Amazon. It’s chock full of behind the scenes information, loads of photos, and the script itself.

We have taken the ‘The Cabin in the Woods: The Official Visual Companion‘ book and are passing it around to domr of our horror friends. No, you cannot request to receive it, but also know that just because you do not get it does not mean you are not our friend. We have first passed this onto someone we know.. (read that as, ZombieMall.com read the book and handed it off to someone they know). In turn he has passed it on to someone he knows. In turn she is going to pass it on to someone she knows.

NOW.. within the book is a message from ZombieMall.com. IF you DO obtain this book, read the message carefully and let us know about it!

We simply want to see how far in the world this book will travel.

Until next our paths cross..

Stay Scary!

Oh.. and ignore the blood. it’s fake.. we think.

Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft comes a book of unspeakable terror.  Okay, maybe not unspeakable, but it will be full of horror and monsters.  Edited by Kevin Lucia, illustrated by Danny Evarts, The Terror at Miskatonic Falls features over 50 contributors (of which I am one of) who slowly reveal what happened one fateful winter in that quiet little town.

Dark Regions Press is proud to announce PAIN by Harry Shannon, the first in our brand new novella series! You can order PAIN in two collectible formats: our leather-bound signed by both author and artist Deluxe Lettered Hardcover edition with slipcase and our 100 Signed and Numbered Limited Hardcover edition. PAIN includes an introduction by New York Times best selling author Jonathan Maberry! The Deluxe Lettered Hardcover edition comes signed by Jonathan Maberry as well!

Click here to read more about or order PAIN by Harry Shannon!

A top secret virus infects the water supply of a mountain town. Two mercenary soldiers, a retiring doctor and a handful of terrified patients struggle to defend a remote ER against a mob of the living dead. Through one long, harrowing night the living will learn there are many different kinds of…

PAIN

“Harry Shannon’s Pain is filled with razor-sharp wit and insights into human suffering that cut all the way to the bone. Highly recommended!” – Jonathan Maberry, NY Time Bestseller, and multiple Bram Stoker Award Winner

“Shannon’s impeccable pacing and eye for the terrifying will leave the reader shake and unsettled.” – Publisher’s Weekly

“Writing that is controlled, assured, and filled with the kind of spooky atmosphere that used to make you hide your head under the bedcovers on wind-wracked nights. – Tom Piccirilli

“A writer who is not afraid to walk into the shadows and drag the things living there kicking and screaming into the light.” – Brian Keene

Watch the Exclusive book trailer for PAIN by clicking here!

Editions

Deluxe Lettered Hardcover: Deluxe Lettered Hardcover Edition: lettered A-Z, 6”x9”, bound in leather, front cover stamped and spine stamped with the title and the author’s name, includes artsy end papers, signature page which is signed by both author and artist, colored book ribbon with nice full colored header, 60lb. natural vellum stock, a beautiful slipcase and dust jacket. BONUS: signed by New York Times best selling author Jonathan Maberry!

100 Signed and Limited Hardcovers: Numbered 1-100, 6”x9”, bound in leatherette, stamped on the spine with the title and author’s name, includes 80lb. natural vellum end papers, signed by the author, colored book ribbon, multi-colored header, 60lb. natural vellum stock, and has a beautiful dust jacket.

Each edition comes with an introduction by New York Times best selling author Jonathan Maberry!

About the Author

Harry Shannon has been an actor, a singer, an Emmy-nominated songwriter, a recording artist in Europe, a music publisher, a VP of Carolco Pictures (Terminator 2, Total Recall, Rambo), and worked as a freelance Music Supervisor on films such as Basic Instinct and Universal Soldier. He holds an MA in Psychology and is currently a counselor in a private practice. Harry has won the Tombstone, the Black Quill, and has been nominated for the Bram Stoker Award. Although primarily a novelist, the author has sold stories to a number of genre magazines including Cemetery Dance, Horror Garage, City Slab, Crime Spree and Gothic.net. He contributed to a Cemetery Dance Publications’ Brimstone Turnpike, as well as shorter fiction to several genre anthologies, among them Dead West, A Dark and Deadly Valley, Dead Set and In Delirium II.

Shannon’s first signed and limited edition short story collection Bad Seed debuted in June of 2001. His debut horror novel Night of the Beast–the first in a pulp trilogy set in northeastern Nevada–was released in 2002. The acclaimed Night of the Werewolf won the small press Tombstone Award for Best Novel of 2003. The final book in the series, Night of the Demon, was released by Delirium Press in 2005. These ‘Night’ books are currently out of print, but may be back in 2010.

Harry Shannon’s first noir effort, Memorial Day (A Mick Callahan Novel), takes place in fictional Dry Wells, Nevada. The sequel, Eye of the Burning Man, came out in November, 2005. A third Mick Callahan novel, One of the Wicked, will be released in fall of 2008.

Shannon’s first thriller The Pressure of Darkness was released in November of 2006. In 2010 Dark Regions Press released A Host of Shadows, his first collection of short fiction since 2001.

Click here to read more about or order PAIN by Harry Shannon!

Publisher contact information

Dark Regions Press
P.O. Box 1264
Colusa, CA, 95932

We all know that when this plague of zombies hits, it’s going to hit hard.  We also know that there is a good chance that it can go global.  What we don’t know is when or where the first outbreak will occur.  I and my ZombieMall.com website are based in the United States, that’s just by chance for me.  I’ve got a plan for survival, as most of my readers should for their particular area.  I took Max Brooks’ The Zombie Survival Guide and read it cover to cover.  There were some things I already knew and a few things I learned.

The topic of survival is always interesting to me, right on down to watching shows like The Colony and Survivor Man.  I suppose my interest in them is because it shows survivor tools in various parts of the world.

I’ll let that be a segway into a book I got in the mail this past weekend; The Official Zombie Handbook (UK) – A Ministry of Zombies book by Sean T. Page.

While the book itself references many United Kingdom locations and terms, the information contained within is universal to getting prepared before, during, and after the plague hits.  Please allow me to impress upon you that this book is not a rehash of Max Brooks’ book, not in any way.  Sean T. Page goes into such detail and reflection that the line between fact and fiction does not seem to exist.

“But I live in South America, why do I need a book that is based in the UK?”

Dude, it’s about freakin zombie survival!  Of course you need it!  Look, as I mentioned, yes, it references many United Kingdom locations, terms, and conditions, but the information overall is Universal.  The Royal Navy may not exist where you live, but the topic of your water-going military’s evacuation plan is pertinent information, that topic in this book is insight you need to know!

Listen, I got the Official Zombie Handbook (UK) on Saturday, within 2 days I had it read from cover to cover.  That’s not to say it’s a fast read, I just tend to read fast.  But here’s the cool part about this book:  You don’t have to read it from beginning to end straight through.  You can certainly pop open the book and pick a subject and begin reading (personally I love books like that).

All in all I would have to say this book is a must have for any zombie enthusiast.  You can find it on Amazon.com and for further information you can visit the Ministry of Zombies site as well.

The only thing I can say about this one that is negative is that my site is not listed on page 188.  Oh well, perhaps in the next Ministry of Zombies book, because, Sean, you gotta keep on writing my friend!

Lastly, I just want to say to Sean, thanks for the read and..

Stay Scary!

-Brian Hardin II

www.ZombieMall.com

As I mentioned in a previous post, Tim Deal from Shroud Publishing sent me a care package.  One of the books was Peckinpah: An UltraViolence Romance by D. Harlan Wilson.

I used a bandaid for a bookmark.  Split hogs abound, a broken clover, comPuter Cleaner, and a holographic name of Helen are but parts in this enigmatic book of prose.

Let me explain..  This is not a normal book.  Well, it is, in the terms that it has a cover, pages with writing on them, and all that jazz.  But it’s not a normal read.  It’s not exactly peotry, nor is it exactly a novel.  It’s something a bit in between.  Peckinpah embodies a tale of murder and violence and of course, romance.

Sit down with it, drink your coffee or chocolate milke, pick the sock-fuzz out from between your toes and then sit back and read.  You will not get up until it is finished.  I have to give this one a must read for any of your horror fans who are looking for something…  different.

But beware, your brain might not function the same once you close this book.

A few months back I received a care package from Tim Deal over at Shroud Publishing.  Included in that package was a book by R. Scott McCoy (you may know him as publisher and editor of Necrotic Tissue) called FEAST.

I literally flew through this book in less than a day.  It was a page turner, and to be honest, I was left hungry for more.

Nick Ambrose is a Deputy Sheriff who has an ability to look at someone and know their past, their guilt, their sins.  He and his brother Pete (also in law enforcement) track down a psychopath.  Something goes very wrong and Nick becomes something more.

Nick, part vampire, part zombie, part telepath, has fear enter his life and finds he has to get away from everything.  Along his journey he encounters the damned, the guilty, and the innocent.

But what happens when Nick looses a grip on his reality and finds he has killed?  How car over the edge will he be pushed when he is face to face with evil?  Will he become the madman he has been chasing all his life or will he become the hero?

FEAST is 155 pages and damnit, I’m ready for another 1,000!

I highly recommend this book!  You can buy it for a measly $8.00 over at Shroud Publishing‘s website:

http://www.shroudmagazine.com/feast-by-r-scott-mccoy.html

Welcome to the weird and wild world of ESOTERIA-LAND! You won’t find it on any map, but you will find it between the covers of this book. ESOTERIA-LAND is the realm of Michael McCarty’s nonfiction. Over the years he has written hundreds of interviews, articles, essays and reviews, and he has selected an authentic, eclectic, and eccentric array of these works for your entertainment – and education, too. You’ll learn surprising things about your favorite actors, comedians, musicians, artists, movies, CDs and books that you never knew before.

Inside you will find interviews with Tommy Chong, Justin Hayward of The Moody Blues, Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell, Bobcat Goldthwait, Mojo Nixon, Terry Pratchett, Alan Dean Foster, Forry Ackerman, and many more. You’ll learn tantalizing tidbits about Roger Corman’s movies, Red Dwarf, Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, and the writing careers of Dean Koontz, Neil Gaiman, and Richard Laymon. You’ll find out why world-famous Masters of the Macabre like Halloween, receive helpful hints on how to write Science-Fiction, Horror and Fantasy, and discover new facts and insights as Michael reviews a variety of CDs, movies, and books.

An introduction by scream-queen Linnea Quigley and afterword by The Amazing Kreskin round out this amazing collection. Welcome to ESOTERIA-LAND, but be warned . . . you’ll enjoy it so much, you may never want to leave!

Just $24.95 plus postage

You can pick it up at Amazon.com here: ESOTERIA-LAND ~ Michael McCarty

Paperback: 366 Pages

Publisher: BearManor Media

Language: English

ISBN-10: 159393505

ISBN-13: 978-1593935009

Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.8 inches

You guys all know I like to read.  A lot.  When I was in high-school my face was burried deep within a book each and every day.  For me they were magical portals to other worlds.  Something with much more meaning that going to a movie.  Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy watching movies too, but reading is my passion.  I would spend almost every Saturday at my local used book store looking at every spine as if it were a new type of candy…

A few weeks ago I found a site online called SeekBook.org .  It is run by Brad Kinne and is more than an entity online.  While you can purchase books from the site online, you can also physically walk into Seek Books if you are in the Boston area.

Now, here’s the thing that makes this book store different.  Brad has been a major fan of Sci-Fi, Horror, and Fantasy longer than even I have been.  That means that each book in his store is actually part of his personal collection!  They carry over 6,500 different titles!

Why am I going on about a book store?  Well, simply put, I feel there is a major place in the world for the physical tangible form of a book.  You will never see me walking around with one of those electronic e-readers that costs over $250.00!  You will almost always catch me with a book (I’m actually reading 4 right now) or a magazine, or working on my own writing.

In years past I’ve heard that the internet is going to do away with real world books.  I just don’t think that will happen.  Thanks to people like Brad Kinne and his Seek Books, we won’t ever have to worry about that either!

Be sure to check out his YouTube YellowBook video too:  Seek Books Video

I can recall back in Junior High School having a list of books to choose from with which I had to read and produce a report on to the class. There were such titles as Animal Farm by Orwell, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck, anything by William Shakespeare, and the list went on and on.

I’m sure that Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen was also among that list, but I’m pretty sure I never read it. I’ll admit when I was younger my taste in books was usually found in works by Stephen King, Clive Barker, Richard Matheson and the like. Dracula, Frankenstein, Voyage of the Space Beagle, classics, but admittingly, darker classics. If it had monsters in it, chances are I was reading it.

It’s a good bet that if Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters was on that list I would have read it. Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters is the second book to come out from Quirk Classics in which a classic of Jane Austen’s has been developed into an adaptation of sorts. The first being Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith (keep your eyes out here by the way for a review of that one from ZombieMall as well).

What Ben H. Winters has done is taken the original novel and has injected pirates, giant lobsters, two-headed sea serpents, and of course massive sea monsters, all while staying true to the original theme of Austen’s writings, romance, heartbreak, and lasting happiness. This book features “60% Austen and 40% additional monster chaos!”.

What I find fascinating is after the read there is a readers discussion guide consisting of 10 questions and observations brought up within the novel itself. Seriously, this is an element that I immediately found myself jumping into! I just wish I had someone else to call up and talk with in regards to those questions! Damnit, I was ready to jump right in and start discussing this book!

This is the synopsis provided with the sell sheet:

“As out story opens, the Dashwood sisters are evicted from their childhood home and sent to live on a mysterious island full of savage creatures and dark secrets. While sensible Elinor falls in love with Edward Ferrars, her romantic sister Marianne is courted by both the handsome Willoughby and the hideous man-monster Colonel Brandon. Can the Dashwood sisters triumph over meddlesome matriarchs and unscrupulous rogues to find true love? Or will they fall prey to the tentacles that are forever snapping at their heels?”

Here is what ZombieMall will add to that; If you are into Lovecraft, enjoy pirates and sea monsters, can’t get enough steampunk (yes steampunk), then look no further than Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. There are several deaths in the first few pages as well as blood stained beaches. There is a wonderful “city” deep under sea, a large living island, and much much more. If you are looking for an escape into a different reality, this is certainly the book for you.

Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters is set to be released on September 15th.
It is in Paperback and runs at 344 pages and has a retail price of $12.95 US Dollars.
It should be available at places like Amazon and all of your major book stores.

Check this out! It’s a trailer for the book!