Next SFF Author: Katie MacAlister

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SFF Author: Jonathan Maberry

(1958- )
Jonathan Maberry is a professional writer and writing teacher and since 1979 has sold more than 1100 articles, 17 nonfiction books, and 6 novels, as well as short stories, poetry, song lyrics, video scripts, and two plays. He has won multiple Bram Stoker Awards. In 2004 he was inducted into the International Martial Arts Hall of Fame, because of his extensive writings in that field. He is also a martial arts master holding an 8th degree black belt in Jujutsu, and 5th degree black belts in Kenjutsu (Japanese swordsmanship) and Hapkido. Learn more at Jonathan Maberry’s blog.

Patient Zero: Like riding The Screaming Eagle

Patient Zero by Jonathan Maberry

The summer I turned 30, I went to Great America with my two sisters and one brother-in-law. We rode the Screaming Eagle rollercoaster, one of those wooden rebuilds of old-time coasters, which (at the time) had the longest drop on the first hill of any rollercoaster in the world. As we reached the top of that hill, my sister turned to me and said, “It’s been nice knowing you.” Sure enough, that first drop about killed me; even worse (or better, depending on your perspective) was the series of corkscrew turns at high speed that came toward the end of the ride.

Terry Weyna and Robert Thompson´s rating: 4 | Jonathan Maberry | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

The Dragon Factory: Not as good as Patient Zero

The Dragon Factory by Jonathan Maberry

CLASSIFICATION: Like Patient Zero, The Dragon Factory is an exciting, action-packed techno-thriller in the vein of James Rollins’ SIGMA FORCE novels and 24. Instead of the Resident Evil/28 Days Later-like zombie/horror elements though, the book brought to mind 80s-era G.I. Joe and James Bond due to the villains and their outlandish ideas.

FORMAT/INFO: The Dragon Factory is 496 pages long divided over four titled Parts,

Robert Thompson and Terry Weyna´s rating: 3.5 | Jonathan Maberry | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The King of Plagues: Back to the original Joe Ledger forumula

The King of Plagues by Jonathan Maberry

PLOT SUMMARY: Saturday 09:11 Hours: A blast rocks a London hospital and thousands are dead or injured… 10:09 Hours: Joe Ledger arrives on scene to investigate. The horror is unlike anything he has ever seen. Compelled by grief and rage, Joe rejoins the DMS and within hours is attacked by a hit-team of assassins and sent on a suicide mission into a viral hot zone during an Ebola outbreak.

Soon Joe Ledger and the Department of Military Sciences begin tearing down the veils of deception to uncover a vast and powerful secret society using weaponized versions of the Ten Plagues of Egypt to destabilize world economies and profit from the resulting chaos.

Robert Thompson and Terry Weyna´s rating: 4.5 | Jonathan Maberry | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Dead of Night: One of the best zombie novels I’ve ever read

Dead of Night by Jonathan Maberry

CLASSIFICATION: Dead of Night is a zombie/horror/techno-thriller hybrid that combines the relentless pacing and action of Dean Koontz and James Rollins with the characterization of Stephen King and the gore and terror of George A. Romero and The Walking Dead.

FORMAT/INFO: Dead of Night is 368 pages long divided over 105 chapters, with each chapter denoted by location. Narration is in the third-person via numerous POVs, but mainly follows two characters in Officer Dez Fox and reporter Billy Trout.

Magazine Monday: Cemetery Dance, Issue 66

No, it’s not a horrible magazine; it’s a horror magazine, and a fine one at that. It’s only the Monday that’s horrible.

Cemetery Dance is published irregularly, usually three to four issues per year, and covers the entire field of horror, from film to comics to novels. It is heavy on the nonfiction, with excellent reviews and multiple interviews. There are six stories in this issue, all of them excellent. Issue 66 impressed me so much that I’ve already ordered the next, and am likely to subscribe.

The first story,

Magazine Monday: Nightmare, Inaugural Issue

The magazine isn’t horrible; it’s in the horror genre. Perhaps reading about a great magazine — and then reading the magazine itself — will make your Monday more bearable!

John Joseph Adams, editor of the well-regarded science fiction and fantasy e-journal, Lightspeed, as well as numerous excellent anthologies, has launched a new horror e-zine, Nightmare. It will feature two reprint stories along with two original stories each month, along with in-depth interviews, short interviews with each author whose story is featured in the issue,

Magazine Monday: Nightmare Magazine, January and February 2014

The January 2014 of Nightmare Magazine opens with “The Mad Butcher of Plainfield’s Chariot of Death” by Adam Howe. Gibbons is the proud owner of Eddie Gein’s car, a genuine relic of the murder on which Alfred Hitchcock based his movie Psycho. Gibbons has a carnival show built around the car, a regular “Disneyland from hell,” and he can’t figure why it isn’t the huge success he expected when he spent his inheritance from his mother on the thing. But not only don’t people flock to see his show with a two-bit carnival traveling from town to town;

SHORTS: Robson, Shoemaker, Levine, Emrys, Maberry, Kritzer

Here are some of the stories we read this week that we wanted you to know about. For the next few weeks we’ll be focusing on 2015 Nebula-nominated short fiction.

Waters of Versailles by Kelly Robson (2015, free at Tor.com, $0.99 for Kindle). Nominated for the 2015 Nebula Award (Novella).

Waters of Versailles centres on an unorthodox protagonist in Sylvain de Guilherand. Sylvain is the mastermind behind the water system in Versailles. That is to say,

SHORTS: Goss, Hogarth, Algernon, Maberry

There is so much free or inexpensive short fiction available on the internet these days. Here are a few stories we read (or listened to!) this week that we wanted you to know about.

“Red as Blood and White as Bone” by Theodora Goss (May 2016, free at Tor.com, $0.99 Kindle version)

Klara, the daughter of a woodcutter, now a kitchen maid at a wealthy baron’s castle, deeply loves fairy tales, which are the only outlet for her imagination. Perhaps she is a princess in disguise,

SHORTS: Pratt, Liu, Lee, Klages, Maberry

These are a few of the online short works we read this week. Our themes this week are libraries and books, mixed with some poison and zombies. As long as we keep the zombies and the poison out of the libraries, it’s all good.

The Fairy Library by Tim Pratt (2013, free on Apex, Kindle magazine issue, also included in Antiquities and Tangibles and Other Stories by Tim Pratt)

When I realized I had,

The New Dead: A Zombie Anthology

The New Dead: A Zombie Anthology by Christopher Golden (ed.)

FORMAT/INFO: The New Dead is 400 pages long divided over nineteen short stories. Also includes a Foreword by the editor Christopher Golden, and biographies on all of the anthology’s contributors. February 16, 2010 marks the North American Trade Paperback publication of The New Dead via St. Martin’s Griffin. Cover art provided by Per Haagensen. The UK version will be published on February 18,

Robert Thompson´s rating: 4.5 | Christopher Golden, David Wellington, Joe Hill, Joe R. Lansdale, John Connolly, Jonathan Maberry, Kelley Armstrong, Mike (M.R.) Carey, Rick Hautala, Tad Williams, Tim Lebbon | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Monster’s Corner: Stories Through Inhuman Eyes

The Monster’s Corner: Stories Through Inhuman Eyes edited by Christopher Golden

FORMAT/INFO: The Monster’s Corner is 400 pages long and consists of 19 short stories. Also included is an Introduction by the editor Christopher Golden, and biographies of all of the anthology’s contributors. September 27, 2011 marks the North American Trade Paperback publication of The Monster’s Corner via St. Martin’s Griffin. The UK version will be published on the same day via Piatkus Books.

ANALYSIS: The New Dead was one of my favorite books of 2010,

Limbus, Inc.: Five horror novellas

Limbus, Inc. edited by Anne C. Petty

Limbus, Inc., is a set of five novellas by Benjamin Kane Ethridge, Jonathan Maberry, Joseph Nasisse, Anne C. Petty and Brett J. Talley all set in the same universe, involving the same mysterious employment agency. The stories vary in quality, and have a frame that is used inconsistently It’s a cool concept, but it loses something in the translation from idea to page.

Oz Reimagined: You might not even find yourself in Oz

Oz Reimagined edited by John Joseph Adams

Oz Reimagined is a collection of tales whose characters return as often, if not more often, to the “idea” of Oz as opposed to the actual Oz many of us read about as kids (or adults) and even more of us saw in the famed MGM version of the film. As its editors, John Joseph Adams and Douglas Cohen, say in their introduction: “You might not even find yourself in Oz, though in spirit, all these stories take place in Oz,

Bill Capossere´s rating: 3 | Charles Coleman (C.C.) Finlay, Jane Yolen, Jeffrey Ford, Jonathan Maberry, Kat Howard, Ken Liu, Orson Scott Card, Rachel Swirsky, Seanan McGuire, Simon R. Green, Tad Williams, Theodora Goss | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Dark Visions: A Collection of Modern Horror, Volume I

Dark Visions: A Collection of Modern Horror, Volume 1 edited by Anthony Rivera & Sharon Lawson

Dark Visions: A Collection of Modern Horror, Volume One, is a publication of Grey Matter Press, a small publisher of all genres of horror. The anthology has no theme — something of a rarity these days, when most anthologies are restricted to a particular type of monster (zombie, werewolf, vampire; you know the drill). Few of the writers who contributed stories to this anthology are known to me, though there are a few big names.

Dark Duets: A horror anthology

Dark Duets edited by Christopher Golden

Christopher Golden explains in his introduction to Dark Duets that writing is a solitary occupation right up until that moment an alchemical reaction takes place and a bolt of inspiration simultaneously strikes two writers who are friends. Golden has found that the results of collaboration are often fascinating and sometimes magical, as when Stephen King and Peter Straub teamed up to write The Talisman. Writing is an intimate,

Terry Weyna´s rating: 3 | Amber Benson, Carrie Ryan, Cassandra Clare, Charlaine Harris, Christopher Golden, Gregory Frost, Holly Black, Joe R. Lansdale, Jonathan Maberry, Kevin J. Anderson, Rachel Caine, Rick Hautala, Robert Jackson Bennett, Sarah Rees Brennan, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Tim Lebbon | Horror, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

Magic City: Recent Spells: A solid urban fantasy anthology

Magic City: Recent Spells edited by Paula Guran

Things you should know:
1. This is a reprint anthology. If you read a lot of anthologies in the field, you will probably have read some of these before. I had read three, though two of them were among the best ones, and I enjoyed reading them again.
2. It still has some worthwhile stuff in it, especially if you’re a fan of the big names in urban fantasy (Jim Butcher, Carrie Vaughn, Patricia Briggs) and haven’t read these stories before.

Mike Reeves-McMillan | A.C. Wise, Alan Dean Foster, Amanda Downum, Angela Slatter, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Carrie Vaughn, Catherynne M. Valente, Charles De_Lint, Christopher Barzak, Delia Sherman, Diana Peterfreund, Elizabeth Bear, Emma Bull, Holly Black, Jim Butcher, John Shirley, Jonathan Maberry, Nancy Kress, Nisi Shawl, Nnedi Okorafor, Patricia Briggs, Scott Lynch, Simon R. Green | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Urban Allies: Will please many fans of urban and paranormal fantasy

Urban Allies edited by Joseph Nassise

I’m always impressed when authors work together, and in Urban Allies, editor Joseph Nassise has managed to pair up twenty authors who not only collaborate, but merge their own characters into ten brand-new and original adventures. Each story shares a similar theme: popular characters from existing series or novels meet up and must join forces in order to defeat a common threat. Since these are urban fantasy authors, every story has a supernatural or paranormal aspect, though the situations and resolutions are completely unique to each tale,

Jana Nyman´s rating: 4 | C.E. Murphy, Caitlin Kittredge, Carrie Vaughn, Charlaine Harris, Christopher Golden, David Wellington, Diana Rowland, Jaye Wells, Jonathan Maberry, Joseph Nassise, Kat Richardson, Kelley Armstrong, Larry Correia, Seanan McGuire | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

Next SFF Author: Katie MacAlister

Previous SFF Author: Sarah J. Maas

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SFF Author: Jonathan Maberry

Patient Zero: Like riding The Screaming Eagle

The Dragon Factory: Not as good as Patient Zero

The King of Plagues: Back to the original Joe Ledger forumula

Dead of Night: One of the best zombie novels I’ve ever read

Magazine Monday: Cemetery Dance, Issue 66

Magazine Monday: Nightmare, Inaugural Issue

Magazine Monday: Nightmare Magazine, January and February 2014

SHORTS: Robson, Shoemaker, Levine, Emrys, Maberry, Kritzer

SHORTS: Goss, Hogarth, Algernon, Maberry

SHORTS: Pratt, Liu, Lee, Klages, Maberry

The New Dead: A Zombie Anthology

The Monster’s Corner: Stories Through Inhuman Eyes

Limbus, Inc.: Five horror novellas

Oz Reimagined: You might not even find yourself in Oz

Dark Visions: A Collection of Modern Horror, Volume I

Dark Duets: A horror anthology

Magic City: Recent Spells: A solid urban fantasy anthology

Urban Allies: Will please many fans of urban and paranormal fantasy

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