Wrath James White on Depraved

Wrath James White has been developing a reputation as one of the most badass of the hardcore horror writers, right up there with Edward Lee. So I was pleased to learn today that Wrath enjoyed my new novel, Depraved. Here's the blurb he's given me for the book.

"Bryan Smith's Depraved is a violent fast-paced read that's fun in the way that only the sickest most twisted of minds can truly appreciate. I enjoyed the hell out of it!"

-Wrath James White, author of Succulent Prey and The Resurrectionist

House Of Blood reprinted

Just learned that Leisure Books has reprinted House of Blood, which was my first novel. It had been out of stock from the publisher for some time, but it will soon be readily available again. So for newer readers, here's your opportunity to get a copy. It will probably be a few more days before it's in stock in places like Amazon again, but it's already available from the Dorchester site and I plan to stock up on some new copies myself.

http://dorchesterpub.com/Dorch/productdetail.cfm?product_ID=1121&L1=1

The Dark Ones--liftoff achieved!

Finally started the actual writing of The Dark Ones this past week. I did a bit more than 1,500 words on it today. This was the third or fourth writing session, but the first couple were sort of tentative, with me feeling my way into it a little bit, which is almost always how it is after I've taken my usual between novels break. Today, though, I was firing on all cylinders and I now feel well immersed in the world I'm creating. As hinted at in a previous post, The Dark Ones will be a bit of a shift in a slightly different direction. The Killing Kind is very brutal and real world-based, and DO is a move back toward over-the-top supernatural horror. The difference between DO and something like Deathbringer is twofold--I'll be trying to create a somewhat more layered story this time around, applying some of the gritty realism of TKK to a more fantastical story (as contrary as that sounds) and it'll be the first of my novels to feature any significant amount of kinda/sorta autobiography. I went into in the earlier post, of course, but as I move into the active writing phase of this project, I can already see this element will be even more pronounced than I originally envisioned. I'm going to have to be conscious of avoiding making any one character identifiably based on moi. That said, I think I'm going to have a blast writing this one.

Famous Monsters reviews Depraved

Famous Monsters Of Filmland has reviewed Depraved. FM gave my last novel, Soultaker, a really pretty decent review, and a quote from that even made the back cover of Depraved. But this review for Depraved is good deal more enthusiastic than the review for Soultaker. I've been saying all along this is by far the best of my published novels (or at least it will be until the insanely brutal, bleak, unforgiving, and unrelenting The Killing Kind comes out next July), so it's gratifying to see a review like this. Of course, there's extra kick just due to my memories of reading the print version of FM as a kid back in the 70's. Yeah, Forry Ackerman is gone, but it's still fucking cool. Check out the review at the link below:

http://www.famousmonstersoffilmland.com/2009/10/07/literature-review-depraved-by-bryan-smith/

Bringing the Depravity to you live in person...

I will be appearing at the October Comic & Horror Festival here in Nashville on Oct. 17th. Get your books signed. There were will also be plenty of copies of my latest releases for sale. Check it out at the link below (they just added my info at ...the bottom of the page):

http://www.comiccitytn.com/hfest_guests.html

Book news and a change

Yes, it's been a while again. Sorry about that. Couple bits of news to announce. Firstly, I have reset my www.bryansmith.info url to start redirecting to this blog. Previously it had forwarded to my My Space page. I had been thinking about changing it for a while. Not everyone has a My Space page, and not everyone wants to hear that music player start blaring as soon as the page loads. With this page, you get the blog right away, as well as options to go to my My Space or Facebook pages. I just think this will be better in the long run, especially as I start to update this page more regularly.

Depraved is officially out now. It started shipping from Amazon a week or so ago and is hitting stores everywhere this week. My "special feature" article on the writing of the book went up on the Dorchester Publishing site yesterday. Link below:

http://dorchesterpub.com/Dorch/SpecialFeatures.cfm?Special_ID=2735

Sorry, I still don't know how to make links clickable with Blogger, so you'll have to copy and paste.

The other big news is Leisure Books has accepted my novel The Dark Ones, which will be my eighth book with them. Previously sold novel The Killing Kind will be out from them in July of next year, which would likely put The Dark Ones into early 2011, but official pub date is yet to be determined.

Regarding The Dark Ones, I posted the following at my Keenedom message board recently. More thoughts on this book to come as I actually write it (it was sold based on a synopsis).

"The setting will be a small town neighborhood patterned exactly (or as close to exact as I can get this many years down the road) after the neighborhood I grew up in. Some of the towns in previous books (Soultaker and Deathbringer, in particular) have been loosely inspired by my old hometown, but this will be the first time I have essentially recreated the old neighborhood in a fictional setting. So when you're reading this book in 2011 and I'm describing any given house or street or landmark, odds are it'll be a real place or thing, down to the smallest detail I can remember. I have an underlying reason I won't reveal for now for doing this, other than to say that a big part of the inspiration for this story is something that actually existed back in the long ago. In some ways it'll be my most personal novel, but never fear, it'll be just as jam-packed with wild, kooky, outrageous things as any of the earlier books.

One big difference between fiction and reality--though patterned after the real places, the town and neighborhood in the book will have fictitious names. Even so, I imagine anyone who grew up there with me who reads it will frequently think, 'Holy shit! I remember that!" Should be an interesting writing experience."