It’s hard for me to think about this book without thinking about the way Hollywood mucked up the ending to the recent film. The test audience didn’t like the real ending, so they made it much happier, and much more Hollywood. It reduced the IAL vampires to common monsters-they left in that they set complex traps and whatnot, but then made them into ( Read more... )

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As part of my teaching class for SHU I need to make a CV (curriculum vitae aka teaching resume), write an application letter to a place I might teach, and write a statement of teaching philosophy ( Read more... )

"Speaking as a foreigner, who the fuck would want to take over the United States? It would be like trying to keep a giant diseased ape in your apartment that eats money and suffers from life threatening obesity and constant diarrhea but viciously savages you every time you try to give it free health care." --Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw ( Read more... )

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The most interesting thing about Clive Barker’s Cabal is who falls on which side of the line. You have Boone, Lori, and the Nightbreed against Dr. Decker, Eigerman, and the mob of cops and good ole’ boys. From an early age we are trained to respect police officers and doctors, here Barker portrays them as the villains. Dr. Decker has been ( Read more... )

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I recently got a rejection letter saying one of my stories was predictable. This stabbed deep into my insides, curdling a puddle of paranoia and wound licking. Reading Jeanne Cavelos’ “Innovation into Horror”, one of the chapters in On Writing Horror, I started to panic a bit more, reading entirely too much into the quote “If you don’t have a ( Read more... )

“When [Jack Torrance] was himself there wasn’t a nicer guy in the whole state of Vermont” (King 114). Unfortunately for Wendy and Danny, Jack hasn’t been feeling himself lately. The Shining is one of my favorite Stephen King books, and I think the characterization of Jack and his descent to madness make the book. King’s characters are always ( Read more... )

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