The Hollywood Reporter has revealed that Stephen King‘s novel Doctor Sleep, a sequel to The Shining, will be released on 24 September 2013. The news was released on King’s website earlier.

Read the Hollywood Reporter story HERE (with video link to King’s reading of an extract) and the BBC’s report HERE

The BBC reports that Michael Clarke Duncan, best known for his role as convicted murderer John Coffey in the film adaptation of Stephen King’s The Green Mile, has died at the age of 54 after suffering a heart attack.

Duncan, a former bodyguard, only began acting in his thirties. While he had a variety of roles, The Green Mile was the film which brought him instant fame and much acclaim as an actor. He was Oscar nominated as Best Supporting Actor for the role.

He had other genre roles in films such as Armageddon, alongside Bruce Willis, Daredevil, with Ben Affleck, and Sin City. The Guardian‘s obituary contains a number of film clips from Duncan’s short-lived, but highly memorable, film career.

In the Tall Grass is an ebook collaboration between Stephen King and Joe Hill which will be published in October 2012 by Scribner (an imprint of Simon & Schuster).

About the Book:
“In the Tall Grass begins with a sister and brother who pull off to the side of the road after hearing a young boy crying for help from beyond the tall grass.

Within minutes they are disoriented, in deeper than seems possible, and they’ve lost one another. The boy’s cries are more and more desperate.

What follows is a terrifying, entertaining, and masterfully told tale, as only Stephen King and Joe Hill can deliver…”

11.22.63 by Stephen King

Hodder & Stoughton, p/b, £7.99

Reviewed by Pauline Morgan

History is littered with occasions that, with hindsight, people think changed the future: incidents that if changed, would make the world a different place. Usually we think it would have been better – but there is no way of knowing. A frequent thought is that if Hitler had been killed earlier, or that one of the assassination attempts had succeeded there would have been no Second World War. The SF term for such a pivotal event is a Jonbar Hinge. In 11.22.63, Stephen King considers such an event.

As most people know, the 11th of September 1963 was the date on which President Kennedy was killed in Dallas,Texas. A lot of us remember what we were doing when we first heard the news. I was making peppermint creams to give as Christmas presents. Many have wondered what would have happened if he had survived.

In this novel King gives his narrator, Jake Epping, the opportunity to find out. Jake is a divorced English teacher who frequents a particular burger bar because the food is not only cheap but also good. When he hurries over after an emergency call, Jake is shocked by the owner’s appearance. He has aged considerably and is terminally ill with lung cancer, yet Al Templeton was fit and healthy the day before. Al explains and asks a favour of Jake.

In the back of Al’s store room there is a hole between 2011 and 1958. Al has been using it to go back in time to buy cheap meat. Every time he goes back, the past resets itself so every time is the first time as far as the inhabitants of 1958 are concerned. However long Al spends in the past, only two minutes elapse in the present. Al has proved that it is possible to change the past even though events resist his interference. From press records, Al discovered that a young girl would be crippled in a shooting accident. When he stopped the hunter being in the woods that day, the girl remained healthy although the path of her life followed a similar track. The favour Al wants from Jake is for him to go back and stop the assassination of Kennedy. It would mean living five years in the past. Al tried but was defeated by his illness. Jake agrees.

From this point the novel becomes a mixture of genres. The main thrust is that of a ‘stranger in a strange land’. However much historical research is done, hearsay is never a substitute for the real thing. Jake is going back to before he was born so doesn’t even have his own memories to help him. He has to pick his way through an alien landscape without making too many mistakes. Although he has the facility of going back and starting again he is actually living those years. King’s research, as far as I am aware, is immaculate. On top of Jake’s mission is layered romance. Although his intention had been to interact as little as possible with the past, he meets Sadie and falls in love (five years is a long time to stay aloof). It is this section that gives the book its humanity as a lot of the plot is already known and Jake is following a well marked trail.

To complete his mission, he needs to prove that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone; otherwise taking him out of the equation too soon would allow conspirators to put someone else in place to carry out the deed. This means shadowing Oswald, being in places where he will be, watching unobtrusively, trying not to come to the attention of the authorities who also have Oswald under surveillance as a dissident (he had spent time as a defector in Russia and now plans to emigrate to Cuba).

Then there is history itself. It does not want to change. It is like an elastic band. Jake is distorting it; history wants to snap back into its proper conformation. Change puts obstacles in Jake’s path. It is as if it knows what he plans and will go all out to stop him.

As with so many of King’s novels, this is a big book (734 pages). Perhaps it could be reduced in length by judicial pruning but as King is a consummate story-teller, it flows easily. Ultimately, it is worth spending time with.

PS Publishing have teamed up with Centipede Press to make available selected Centipede books at a fraction of their original published price. Plus, postage and packing charges will, of course, be lower for UK customers as they won’t need to be shipped from the US.

To start this venture off, they are offering Centipede’s Knowing Darkness, a sumptuous volume full of artwork inspired by the writing of Stephen King. This 448-page art book includes colour and black and white paintings and drawings that have directly or indirectly illustrated King’s writings over the last thirty-five years.

Artists include Michael Whelan, Ned Dameron, J.K. Potter, John Jude Pelancar, Stephen Gervais, and many others. The book features an introduction by Frank Darabont and text (written by King critic George Beahm) that looks back at 34 years of King in print providing a detailed look at the writer and his life, and supplemented with interviews with Michael Whelan, Bernie Wrightson, Drew Struzan, John Cayea, Dave Christiansen, and many others.

The book was originally published at £180 ($295) but PS are offering it for £95 (around $150) plus post & packing (£8.95 in the UK or £12.95 everywhere else). There are only 100 copies available.

Full details HERE

The Horror Writers Association has announced the longlisted works for its Preliminary Ballot for the 2011 Bram Stoker Award. Authors with longlisted work include Stephen King, Joe Hill, Reggie Oliver, Allyson Bird, Alan Moore, Peter Straub, Robert Shearman, Caitlin R. Kiernan, John Ajvide Lindqvist, Christopher Fowler, Kaaron Warren and Lisa Morton.

Following the Preliminary Ballot, a Final Ballot will be held to arrive at the nominees for the Award.

The full list of longlisted work is available HERE

Corvus Books have published an anthology, Zombies, originally published in the US as Zombies! Zombies! Zombies! by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard.

“Horrifying ghouls, decaying corpses, body snatchers, grave robbers and flesh-eating monsters. In this gruesome anthology of the living dead, all these and more will try to catch your eye and devour your brain.

From the macabre pens of the world’s most spine-tingling horror and fantasy writers, the grisliest, goriest, ghastliest stories from the last two centuries have been plucked from the shadows by legendary editor Otto Penzler, to form the most monstrous volume in zombie history.”

Authors include: H.P. Lovecraft, Stephen King, Ramsey Campbell, R. Chetwynd-Hayes, Clive Barker, Richard Christian Matheson, Edgar Allan Poe, Joe R. Lansdale, Lisa Tuttle, Graham Masterton, Robert Bloch, Charles Birkin, Mort Castle, Kevin J. Anderson, W.B. Seabrook, Steve Rasnic Tem, F. Marion Crawford, Michael Marshall Smith, Karen Haber, David A. Riley, Guy De Maupassant, Richard Laymon, Thomas Burke, Anthony Boucher, John Knox, Theodore Sturgeon and Seabury Quinn, among others.

Details and ordering information HERE

‘The Century’s Best Horror Fiction in two hardcover volumes, edited by John Pelan.

Featuring Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, Shirley Jackson, Robert Bloch, Charles Beaumont, Jack Ketchum, Gary Brandner, Dennis Etchison, Michael Bishop, Ramsey Campbell, David Schow, Joe R. Lansdale, Elizabeth Massie, Thomas Ligotti, Robert Aickman, Poppy Z. Brite, Lucy Taylor, Stephen Laws, Brian Hodge, Glen Hirshberg, Tim Lebbon, W.W. Jacobs, H.G. Wells, Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, M.R. James, H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, August Derleth, Manly Wade Wellman, Theodore Sturgeon, David A. Riley, Joel Lane, Fritz Lieber, Ian Watson and many others!

Cemetery Dance Publications commissioned a spectacular two-volume anthology project under the editorship of noted author and historian of the horror genre, John Pelan.

John selected one story published during each year of the 20th Century (1901-2000) as the most notable story of that year — all 100 stories were then collected in this amazing two volume set to be published as The Century’s Best Horror Fiction.

The ground rules were simple: Only one selection per author. Only one selection per year.

Two huge volumes, one hundred authors, one hundred classic stories, more than 700,000 words of fiction — history in the making!’

Pre-orders now being taken at the Cemetery Dance WEBSITE

In keeping with its primary theme of “The Next Generation”, World FantasyCon has announced living legend Richard Matheson and his son Richard Christian Matheson as its first author Guests of Honour to World Fantasy Convention 2013,  from 31 October – 3 November 2013 in Brighton.

Richard Matheson is a master of modern science fiction, fantasy and horror, and Stephen King credits him with single-handedly regenerating a stagnant genre. His best known novels include the influential I Am Legend, The Shrinking Man, A Stir of Echoes, Hell House, The World Fantasy Award-winning Bid Time Return and What Dreams May Come, all of which have been turned into movies. His latest novel, Other Kingdoms, is about witchcraft and fairies in a rural English village.

He also scripted fourteen episodes of Rod Serling’s iconic The Twilight Zone TV series (including the classic ‘Nightmare at 20,000 Feet’), and has produced movies including The Fall of the House of Usher, Pit and the Pendulum, Tales of Terror, The Raven, The Comedy of Terrors, The Devil Rides Out (aka The Devil’s Bride), Duel, The Legend of Hell House, Somewhere in Time, Jaws 3-D and the two ‘Kolchak’ TV movies, The Night Stalker and The Night Strangler.

Richard Matheson was awarded the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1984 and the World Horror Convention’s Living Legend Award in 2000. In 2006 he was presented with The Legend Award by Ray Bradbury in Los Angeles.

Richard Christian Matheson began his career in the late 1970s. At twenty, he became the youngest writer ever signed to an overall deal with Universal Studios and he wrote scripts for a number of network TV shows. He moved into feature film writing, working with Steven Spielberg on Harry and the Hendersons and Three O’Clock High. To date, he has written, co-written and sold over twelve spec screenplays – considered a record.

He is considered a master of the short-short story and has published more than seventy stories of psychological horror in magazines and major anthologies. Thirty of his critically acclaimed stories are collected in Scars and Other Distinguishing Marks with a Foreword by Stephen King and an Introduction by Dennis Etchison. His second collection, Dystopia, gathers sixty stories with an Introduction by Richard Matheson and an Afterword by Peter Straub. The volume also includes tributes about RC’s writing from Clive Barker, Ellen Datlow, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Ray Bradbury, Stephen Jones, Ramsey Campbell and many others. Matheson’s debut novel, Created By, was a Bram Stoker Award nominee and his magic-realism novella, The Ritual of Illusion, will soon be available from PS Publishing.

Richard Matheson and Richard Christian Matheson will join previously announced Master of Ceremonies, China Mieville (author of Perdido Street Station, The City & the City, Kraken and Embassytown), in Brighton over Hallowe’en weekend 2013.

For full details and how to join visit the website HERE

Night Shade Books have released Alien Contact, an anthology of alien-inspired stories edited by Marty Halpern:

“We are not alone! From War of the Worlds to Invasion of the Body Snatchers… From ET to Close Encounters… creators of science fiction have always eagerly speculated on just how the story of alien contact would play out.

Editor Marty Halpern has gathered together some of the best stories of the last 30 years, by today’s most exciting genre writers, weaving a tapestry that covers a broad range of scenarios: from the insidious, to the violent, to the transcendent.

These twenty-six stories from extraordinary writers such as Harry Turtledove, Orson Scott Card, Molly Gloss, Michael Swanwick, Cory Doctorow, Elizabeth Moon, Adam-Troy Castro, Stephen King, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Neil Gaiman will captivate and intrigue. Separately they are enthralling, combined together into one anthology they will take you to another world.”

Full details on the website