Salon Futura #2 published

05 Tuesday Oct 2010

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Issue 2 of Salon Futura fiction magazine is out, and available for download as an .epub file.

If you need it for the Kindle (which doesn’t support .epub) convert it. Just download the excellent freeware Calibre. Then it’s a simple four-step conversion process…

1. Locate and load your .epub file.

2. Select Convert | Convert Individually.

3. Select Convert to .mobi format. No need to configure this, a straight conversion should be fine.

4. Now connect your Kindle’s USB lead to the desktop, then send your converted file as a .mobi file to the Kindle.

It’s done!

Lovecraft on the Kindle

04 Monday Oct 2010

Posted by in Lovecraftian arts, Odd scratchings

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So, now that the Amazon Kindle ebook reader seems to a mature platform with the Kindle 3, what ebooks are available from the Kindle store in the run-up to Christmas 2010? Not a bad basic selection…

An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia by S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz

The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories (Penguin Classics)

The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories (Penguin Classics)

The Dreams in the Witch House and other Weird Stories (Penguin Classics)

Those who can’t afford the definitive Penguin editions can still get the $2.29 bundle of 67 of the stories, presumably taken from public-domain sources online, and presumably (I would hope) specially formatted for the Kindle. If you look around online you may also find a .mobi formatted ebook (which Kindles can read) of all the stories, for free.

Keep in mind that the Penguin Classics editions are the ‘final cut’ versions, carefully edited and corrected from original sources by the leading Lovecraft scholar. The free versions are taken from sources that are littered with errors and omissions that crept in over the decades.

Tales of Lovecraftian Cats, now on the Kindle

30 Thursday Sep 2010

Posted by in Housekeeping, Lovecraftian arts

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I’m pleased to say that my book Tales of Lovecraftian Cats is now available on the Kindle [ Amazon U.S. Kindle store | Amazon U.K. store ].

Four Horror Stories Of Cats, radically reworked and rewritten in the style and mythos of H.P. Lovecraft.

Contents:

* “Beware the Cat”. Being the first ever English novel (1584). A gothic horror story of talking cats, freely adapted and modernised in a new Lovecraftian translation.

* “How the Grimmalkin Came”. A new sequel to both “Beware the Cat” and Lovecraft’s “Through the Gates of the Silver Key”.

* “The Sending”. A new prequel to Lovecraft’s “The Horror at Red Hook”.

* “The Case of the Savage Cat”. A new prequel to Lovecraft’s “The Horror at Red Hook”.

Kadath art book

30 Thursday Sep 2010

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The Kadath Travel Guide. In French only, but profusely illustrated.

Translated blurb:

“With this new book published by Mnemos, you will begin the most fantastic dream quest for the first time since HP Lovecraft, you will survey your own risk the unknown streets of the city of Kadath. Four authors and illustrator have explored Kadath for you. On the trail of Randolph Carter, between beauty and terror, demons and wonders, you explore the famous city of the Lands of Dream, the capital of forgotten gods and cursed ones.”

Antique fonts

27 Monday Sep 2010

Posted by in Fonts, Lovecraftian arts

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The Fell Types as open-source Truetype fonts by Ignio Marini. So named because they were imported by John Fell of the Oxford University Press, from Holland circa 1670–1672, to bypass government interference in printing. As Propnomicon says, they’re excellent for “faux antique” documents.

After install they turn up not under “F”, but under “I”, as ‘IM Fell Types’.

In the same vein is the display caps font “LP Aspen Cam”, but where you’d obtain it now I’m not sure. It seems to have completely vanished from the web.

[ Hat-tip: Propnomicon ]

Crusoe now available on the Kindle

27 Monday Sep 2010

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My recent Lovecraftian ‘re-mix’ novelette Crusoe: the macabre further adventures of Robinson Crusoe is now available as an ebook on Amazon, for the Amazon Kindle ereader. It’s on the U.S. store only at the moment ($4.99), and I hope the UK store will list it soon. The whole book was re-formatted from scratch for the Kindle, and includes optimised illustrations in the text. It’s been a learning exercise in hand-crafting the HTML required for the Kindle, and crunching the illustrations down, which is a bit of a chore but is hopefully worth it. I hope to get my other Lovecraft books into native Kindle form over the next few weeks.

Release the Air Octopus!

21 Tuesday Sep 2010

Posted by in Films & trailers, Lovecraftian arts

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Kaare Andrews (noted comics artist on Spider-Man and The X-Men and The Incredible Hulk) has a new Lovecraftian horror film out soon, going straight to DVD.

The premise of Altitude is quite interesting. It’s a green-screened indie film from Canada, set in a light plane — a constrained setting which one can only hope the director’s undoubted visual flair for composition has made the best of. The trailer looks good, in that respect, and the CGI looks competent. So one can only hope the story (by Paul A. Birkett, of Escape Velocity, Mindstorm, and Crash Landing) is strong, the plot has some intelligent twists, and the acting/dialogue isn’t dire. Birkett’s films get between one and two stars on IMDB, though, so I’m not hopeful.

/Spoilers ahead/

The film is set in a small light plane, flown by a rookie teen pilot taking four cute friends for a spin. They go up and of course they hit a storm. They start to run out fuel. Then they panic. Then it gets really bad…

Sounds similar to the Twilight Zone “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”. Storm, Plane, Madness, Lovecraftian Sky Beast.

Altitude has been shown at the San Diego ComicCon without reviews, and it’s possibly a bad sign that it’s going straight to DVD (26th October 2010) — although maybe that’s just because they don’t want to waste money on the marketing needed to herd the mouth-breathing popcorn-heads into the cinemas. Straight-to-DVD doesn’t necessarily mean it’s dire — remember what Spielberg did with just a big truck and a TV-movie budget in Duel, for instance.

The official trailer (spoilers alert: it seems to lay out most of the film)…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLWbM3r2W2I&fs=1&start=8;&hl=en_US]