Free Fiction Friday: Coraline

This week’s Free Friday selection is Neil Gaiman’s Coraline. This book was originally written in 2002 and illustrated by Dave McKean. Coraline was turned into a stop motion animation movie in 2009. The movie version of Coraline was directed by Henry Selick and included the voices of Terri Hatcher, Dakota Fanning and Ian McShane. The movie took 18 months to shoot after two years of pre-production and is the longest stop motion animation movie ever made.

The book Coraline tells the story of a girl named Coraline who has just moved to an apartment in an old house. She lives with her parents who work from home but don’t have a lot of time to spend with her. One day Coraline goes exploring and discovers a door that is just like hers. She enters and finds a world that is like hers but more colorful and better then the one she is living in. Her other mother pays more attention to her and is everything that Coraline wants her real mother to be. Not everything is what it appears to be in the other apartment though. Soon Coraline finds herself trapped in the other world and has to outsmart her other mother to escape.

If you would like to adopt a slightly used copy of Coraline, all you have to do is leave a comment on the blog  tell us why you would like to have a copy of this used book. If you enjoyed Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, American Gods, or The Graveyard Book you will probably enjoy Coraline also. This is for US residents only. Good luck and please leave a comment.

Free Fiction Friday: A Dream Of Dracula

For this week’s Free Fiction Friday selection we have to take a trip in our time machine back to the year 1972 for A Dream Of Dracula by Leonard Wolf. This is a non-fiction book that tells the history of the character Dracula. The book starts off by talking about the historic figures that inspired Bram Stoker to write Dracula, such as Romanian ruler Vlad the Impaler and Baron Gilles de Rais who was a French serial killer with a taste for blood.

From there the book talks about the books that inspired Dracula including Mathew G. Lewis’s The Monk and John Polidori’s The Vampyre: A Tale. It also gives a detailed biography on Bram Stoker and talks about his writing process for Dracula. There are even chapters in this book that cover all the plays and movies that were based on Dracula.

When Leonard Wolf wrote A Dream of Dracula, he was working as a creative writing professor at San Francisco State University. He was born in Romania (home of Dracula) and always had an interest in classic horror literature. He went on to write non-fiction books on Frankenstein, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Phantom of the Opera. He has also written several books researching mythological beasts.

A Dream of Dracula was a labor of love and gives a very detailed description of a cultural phenomenon. If you would like your own copy of this book and you live in the United States, just leave a comment on this blog post and let us know why you want to adopt this book. The best comment gets a copy of A Dream of Dracula. Good Luck!

Free Fiction Friday: The Vampire Odyssey

This weeks Free Fiction Friday book is The Vampire Odyssey by Scott Ciencin. This book was originally released in 1992 and was the first in a trilogy. Danielle Walthers was born as a half vampire, when she moves to Beverly Hills she finds that she can no longer contain her blood lust. So she prowls the streets of Los Angeles in search of blood.

I couldn’t find a lot on the plot of this book but I did find a little information on the author. Scott Ciencin worked in television production and started writing in the late 1980′s. He has written many books for children and young adults. He has written four Godzilla novels, along with books based on Dinotopia, Dungeons and Dragons, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Transformers and many more.

Some of the reviews I’ve read for The Vampire Odyssey called it a gem among a sea of vampire novels and action packed with vampires who are delightfully evil. If you would like to satisfy your lust for vampires and bring this novel home, leave a comment on the blog on why you would be a good owner for this book. This is open to US residents only, Good Luck.

Free Fiction Friday:Dracula Unbound

This Week’s Free Fiction Friday selection is Dracula Unbound by Brian Wilson Aldiss. This book was originally released in 1990. The story is that Count Dracula has a time machine that is in the form of a train. He wants to make sure that Bram Stoker never writes his novel Dracula so he sends a group of vampire assassins to the year 1896 to kill Stoker.  Things don’t go well for the vampires, a man named Joe Bodenland hijacks the train and finds Bram Stoker. The two now plan to use the train to destroy all vampires.

Brian Wilson Aldiss is generally a science fiction writer. He is from England and was heavily influenced by H.G. Wells. He is vice president of the international H.G. Wells Society, co-president of the Birmingham Science Fiction Group and has also won two Hugo awards and one Nebula award. Some of the other books Brain has written include: Courageous New Planet, Ruins and Sanity and the Lady. He also wrote Super Toys Last All Summer Long which was the basis for Steven Spielberg’s 2001 film A.I.

The reviews I’ve read for this book say its an entertaining read but the story is a little far fetched. They also say the depiction of Bram Stoker is the best part. Another interesting item brought up in this book is that vampires are descendants of pterodactyls, have mastered time travel and want to use it to enslave the human race.

So if you want to read a tale about time traveling vampires and find out more about Bram Stoker traveling through time to destroy vampires, then this is the book for you. If you are a U.S. resident, leave a comment on the end of this post and let us know why you would be a good owner for this book. The best comment gets a copy of Dracula Unbound.

Free Fiction Friday Double feature

For our Free Fiction Friday this week we have a double feature for you, first up is Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris. Charlaine Harris is the creator of the Sookie Stackhouse series of vampire novels of which the HBO series True Blood is based on. Dead Until Dark is the first book in the Sookie Stackhouse series and was originally published in 2001.

The story for Dead Until Dark is the basis for season 1 of True Blood, but there are some differences. Such as the story is told entirely from Sookie’s point of view.  The synthetic blood is called Life Flow instead of True Blood and some of the characters are different in the TV series.

If you’re a fan of Charlaine Harris and True Blood you’re going to want to adopt this book. This version of the book has the cover that is pictured to the left and is no longer available in stores. The new version has a vampire woman licking her lips and does not look as good as the original. So if you would like this book, leave a comment on the blog and let us know why you would be a good owner for this book. This is available for US residents only.

Dead Until Dark is not the only free read we have for this week. Our second one is available for everyone and all you have to do is click the link below.  This link was talked about on episode 64 of Horror Addicts and it features some writing samples from Weston Ochse.

Weston Ochse is an Arizona based writer who has written several short stories and has won a Bram Stoker Award for long and short fiction. Some of his novels include Scarecrow Gods,  Empire of Salt and Blaze of Glory. The stories featured in the link below are from a story collection called Multiplex Fandango along with an intro by Joe Lansdale.  So if you want more information on Weston Ochse and you want to read some of his stories click the link below:

http://www.westonochse.com/dani_kollin_group_sampler.pdf

So just to recap if you would like to own a copy of Dead Until Dark and you live in the US, please leave a comment on the blog. If you want to read Multiplex Fandango click the link above.

Free Fiction Friday: Darkness On The Ice

This week’s homeless book in search of a home is Darkness On The Ice by Lois Tilton. Which, would have fit nicely with our 1940′s episode that just aired. This book takes place during World War 2. The Nazis are looking for a way to defeat the allies and believe that weather may be the key. They need to know exactly when bad weather will come so they can use it to their advantage.

They set up a plan to take over a weather station in Greenland but need someone there who can stand the cold and protect the weather station 24/7. The only person who can live at the station is an SS officer by the name of Wolff who happens to be a vampire. The only problem is that there is nothing for Wolff to feed on, so he starts to feed on his fellow German soldiers who fly in to work at the station.

Lois Tilton has written three other books besides this one, Vampire Winter, Written in Venom and Darkspawn. She writes mainly Science Fiction and Horror and has won a Nebula award and a Sideways Award for Alternate History. She is currently a short fiction reviewer for locusmag.com.

Darkness On Ice was released in 1993 and is currently out of print. So this book is really hard to find, if you want this book just leave a comment on the blog on why you think you would be the right owner. Some of the reviews I’ve read for this book call it well researched, suspenseful, psychologically tense and just plain great horror. You should find out for yourself though, just leave a comment and you can be the proud owner of Darkness On Ice.

Free Fiction Friday: Blood Kin

Here is our first horror book that is up for adoption. This is a used book that was originally published in 1996. Our book that is looking for a new home is Blood Kin by Ronald Kelly. Ronald Kelly was born and raised in Tennessee and has been writing horror, mystery, and speculative fiction set in the south since 1988. Some of the titles he has written include The Possession, Moon of the Werewolf, and Hell Hollow.

Blood Kin follows a family named the Cravens who thought the vampire cure that was on them ended a century ago. That all ended when a decendent of the Cravens unearths Grandpappy Josiah Craven and unleashes his thirst for blood and carnage on the citizens of Green Hollow Tennessee.

With all the townsfolk falling victims to the vampire one by one, its up to Boyd Andrews and his small band of followers to put a stop to the vampire menace and save Green Hollow. Will the Craven curse be stopped for good? Adopt this book and find out.

Some of the reviews of this book are horrifying and a lot of fun at the same time. These vampires are not whinny and moody, they are vicious and evil. If you like hard core horror with just a little humor you may enjoy this book.

To adopt this book,  just leave a comment on the blog* on why you think you will be the best owner for it and I will pick the best comment. If you’re interested in this book, make sure you comment because it is out of print and you may not find it elsewhere.  Good luck!

*This book adoption is for US residents only.

Ivory

The topic of episode 60 of  Horror Addicts is the 1800′s and the featured author is  Steve Merrifield. Usually, for the show what I would do is look up books that have to with whatever topic the show is about. In order to change things up a little, Emerian had the idea of me reviewing the book Ivory by Steve Merrifield.

Ivory tells the tale of an artist and art teacher named Martin Roberts. Martin is having a midlife crisis, he doesn’t feel satisfied with his family and doesn’t feel inspired to paint anymore. Then one rainy night his life changes when he accidentally hits a teenage girl with his car. Even though the girl should have died in the horrific crash, she survives. She is no ordinary teenager, her skin and hair are pure white, her eyes are black as coal and she is mute. Martin sits with the girl until the paramedics come, then follows them to the hospital.

At the hospital the young woman gets her wounds treated and is picked up by a blind black man named Ebony. Martin finds out that the  girl is a prostitute named Ivory. After the accident Martin tries to go back to his bland life but can’t forget Ivory, so he returns to the scene of the car crash. Martin finds Ivory and a world of danger he never knew existed.  He also rediscovers his inspiration to paint along with an obsession with Ivory that he soon finds out has led other men to there deaths and may kill him as well.

If your like me you we’re probably reading the description of Ivory I just gave and thought it doesn’t sound that good. I could go further describing this book but that would ruin the surprises in the story. This book does not go where you think its going to go. The story builds throughout the book and halfway through becomes impossible to put down. While reading the first half of the book I found myself thinking this is a good book but I’m not sure I would consider it a horror novel. The second half of the book I thought was imaginative, terrifying and violent.

My favorite part of  the book is when we find out exactly who Ebony and Ivory are, where they live and more importantly what other things are in the house. I also liked how Martin sees that his obsession with Ivory is turning him into something he hates as well as destroying his family, but at the same time he can’t stay away from her. I don’t know if it’s how the author meant it, but I took it as a metaphor for drug addiction. I found myself not liking Martin but I could relate to the character and felt sorry for him. Like Martin, I looked at Ebony and Ivory as tragic figures who were given horrible circumstances. The difference being that Martin had a choice of what he became but Ivory and Ebony did not.

My only complaint about this book was that I wanted more. I would love to see a few more books about Ebony and Ivory. I would like to see a prequel that tells more about Ebony’s life and a sequel that focuses on Ivory after the events of this book. I can also think of a third book I would like to see but if I mention what it would be, it would give away some of the surprises you’ll find in Ivory.

If you think Ivory sounds like a good read you can find it for free online. Steve Merriefield just asks that you leave a review where you got the book. This book was so good I found myself feeling guilty not paying for it. I’ll definitely be wanting to read some of the other books that Steve Merrifield has available.

http://stevemerrifield.blogspot.com/