A Trip to Horror World pt. 2

(Last week we began a trip through Horror World. I intended to finish this article and post it a couple of days later. Unfortunately life got in the way and delayed this post. I offer my apologies.)

Providing a safe environment where you can have a message conversation with your favorite author would be an absolute fantastic accomplishment. Horror World, however, has more -- much more. As the front page says, Horror World is owned and edited by Nanci Kalanta (Remember her?) with help from associate editor Matthew Warner (Yes, the horror writer Matthew Warner). Together they have taken to heart the term "value added".

The Columns

Horror World currently has three columnists who take turns posting a column. For example, this month Matthew Warner (http://www.matthewwarner.com/) in his Author's Notes column writes about obscenity, the First Amendment, and how what happens to porn movies could happen to horror books. The essay was fairly disturbing, especially when you realize that besides writing, Mr. Warner works as a paralegal.

The other two columnists are Will Ludwigsen (http://www.will-ludwigsen.com/) and Lucy Snyder (http://www.sff.net/people/lucy-snyder/). You can find a list of the previous columns in the Horror World Column Archive.

Or you can try one of my favorites:
Matthew Warner: Author's Notes
Will Ludwigsen: Pardon the Entrails
Lucy Snyder: Lucy's Laboratory

The Book Reviews

Nanci Kalanta and Matthew Warner have taken to heart the term "value added"

Each month sees a new batch of book reviews and you can find this month's set here. These are reviews of horror novels and collections by people who know and respect the horror genre. They are short and to the point. They give enough of the storyline to hook your interest and then tell you what the book's strength's are. When there are significant weaknesses in a book, the reviewer points them out but no book review I've read on the site trashed a book.

If you're in need of good recommendations and have a little time to browse, the Horror World Review Archive is a fascinating way to gain a fistful of leads. My only regret about the archive is that there is no search feature or index for the times you want to look up a specific title or author.

The Featured Author of the Month

Each month Horror World has a featured short story. This month's story is Some Dark Hope by Tim Waggoner which can be found on the fiction page. It is a free short story (as always, please respect the copyright) which is made available for your enjoyment. It's a great way to get to know an author. If you like the short story, you can check out his or her other work.

Do keep in mind that a short story can only give you a glimpse of the author's writing style. A published author will have a lot more to offer in a novel, a novella or even a collection of stories.

If you're interested in reading Some Dark Hope you really need to click on the link now because soon, very soon, it will disappear and another story by another author will take its place. Unlike the reviews or columns, stories by the Featured Author of the Month are not archived.

The Interviews

Nanci Kalanta is big on getting the information out there.

Horror World also has interviews. This month Steven E. Wedel interviews Kim Paffenroth, author of the Stoker Award winning Gospel of the Living Dead and the new novel Dying to Live. Steven asks some excellent questions and I found the interview very interesting. I haven't read either book by Mr. Paffenroth -- yet. That will be changing soon, in part because of these interviews.

As with the fiction, the interviews aren't archived and soon another interview will take the place of this one. So hurry if you want to find out how George Romero's zombie movies are like Dante's The Divine Comedy or what it feels like to win the Stoker Award seconds after somebody else's book was announced.

The Announcements

Nanci Kalanta is big on getting the information out there. If you click on announcements in the upper right hand corner of any Horror World page, you'll find a page of links to publishers, bloggers and conventions information. You'll also find a link to Horror World's LiveJournal where Nanci also posts many of the announcements she gets.

And Much Much More

Horror World has a chat room, a library where you can read excerpts of published novels and novellas, a newsletter that you can subscribe to, and a page of links to other websites. Horror World is also the home of The Pod of Horror. But that is a post for another time.

(Originally Posted in . . . With Intent to Commit Horror.)