C. Michael Forsyth's Blog
May 30, 2016
Free eBook!
"Bizarre News" eBook FREE Memorial Day only! Feast your eyes on more than 2 dozen stories like "Noah's Ark Found in Antarctic Ice -- with Frozen Crew Aboard!" To get your copy, visit https://www.smashwords.com/books/view... and enter coupon code UZ45S. Spread the word!
April 18, 2016
"Bizarre News" New Book
I'm proud to announce the publication of my new eBook "Bizarre News," a collection of stories too outrageous for the tabloids -- and that CNN wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole! Articles that are too steamy, too sacrilegious, too politically incorrect -- or just too hot to handle.
As an associate editor of the National Enquirer and later a senior writer/reporter for Weekly World News (best known for Batboy saga) I had the opportunity to work on some astounding stories that beggared belief.
But since going solo, I've uncovered news that blows those out of the water.
In this book I open a treasure trove of mind-bending stories with headlines ranging from "Bookshelf Built by Jesus Found" to "Wererabbits Breeding out of Control." Check them out and enjoy the ride!
Bizarre News
As an associate editor of the National Enquirer and later a senior writer/reporter for Weekly World News (best known for Batboy saga) I had the opportunity to work on some astounding stories that beggared belief.
But since going solo, I've uncovered news that blows those out of the water.
In this book I open a treasure trove of mind-bending stories with headlines ranging from "Bookshelf Built by Jesus Found" to "Wererabbits Breeding out of Control." Check them out and enjoy the ride!
Bizarre News
January 31, 2016
I'm Narrating Audiobooks
I have launched a second career as an audiobook producer and narrator.
I always enjoyed reading aloud to my children, assuming different character voices, and look forward to my public readings at festivals and book clubs. This came very naturally.
I just completed the audiobook of my own novel "The Identity Thief," a thriller about an identity thief who impersonates the worst possible person!
You can find it on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/The-Identity-Th...
The book has a lot of ironic humor, reminiscent of the Orson Welles movie "The Third Man," and as narrator, I tried to channel that actor's sardonic tone.
My first project was an audiobook of my novel "The Blood of Titans," a love story set in the golden age of Africa
You can find that audiobook at
http://www.amazon.com/The-Blood-of-Ti...
My first paying gig was producing and narrating the audiobook of "The Philosopher's Load" by T.J. Redig.The Philosopher's Load
It was a challenging assignment because of the varied cast of quirky characters -- including a Hispanic woman who is a vicious Colombian drug lord, and a female bodybuilder who's pumped up on steroids (and later on gets her nose broken, so must be nasal on top of that). But I've really proud of how it turned out -- not just a book read aloud, but truly dramatized. Be sure to check out the blackly funny paranormal crime drama.
I always enjoyed reading aloud to my children, assuming different character voices, and look forward to my public readings at festivals and book clubs. This came very naturally.
I just completed the audiobook of my own novel "The Identity Thief," a thriller about an identity thief who impersonates the worst possible person!
You can find it on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/The-Identity-Th...
The book has a lot of ironic humor, reminiscent of the Orson Welles movie "The Third Man," and as narrator, I tried to channel that actor's sardonic tone.
My first project was an audiobook of my novel "The Blood of Titans," a love story set in the golden age of Africa
You can find that audiobook at
http://www.amazon.com/The-Blood-of-Ti...
My first paying gig was producing and narrating the audiobook of "The Philosopher's Load" by T.J. Redig.The Philosopher's Load
It was a challenging assignment because of the varied cast of quirky characters -- including a Hispanic woman who is a vicious Colombian drug lord, and a female bodybuilder who's pumped up on steroids (and later on gets her nose broken, so must be nasal on top of that). But I've really proud of how it turned out -- not just a book read aloud, but truly dramatized. Be sure to check out the blackly funny paranormal crime drama.
May 19, 2015
Vampires in a women's prison!
My new project is a graphic novel titled "Night Cage," about vampires running amok in a women's prison.
The prison is built underground to make escape impossible. As the contagion spreads, every guard and every convict is converted into a vampire. All except four badass prisoners who've been forgotten in solitary in the very bottom of the jailhouse. To survive, they have to fight their way to the surface, level after level, through a gauntlet of hundreds of vicious vampires.
It's being funded through Kickstarter, and backers can get advance copies, signed by the author. To learn more https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...
The prison is built underground to make escape impossible. As the contagion spreads, every guard and every convict is converted into a vampire. All except four badass prisoners who've been forgotten in solitary in the very bottom of the jailhouse. To survive, they have to fight their way to the surface, level after level, through a gauntlet of hundreds of vicious vampires.
It's being funded through Kickstarter, and backers can get advance copies, signed by the author. To learn more https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...
July 4, 2013
The Blood of Titans
My new book is out!
"The Blood of Titans" is a love story set in the golden age of Africa. I spent years researching ancient Africa to maximize the book's authenticity. That seems to have paid off.
Shauna Roberts author of "Like Mayflies in a Stream," says "The lyrical language of The Blood of Titans quickly drew me into this richly textured fantasy novel by C. Michael Forsyth. I could smell the air, hear the music, and see the towns and sea and grasslands and mountains."
I'll be promoting it through book clubs and will be on the road again this summer at a slew of festivals.
"The Blood of Titans" is a love story set in the golden age of Africa. I spent years researching ancient Africa to maximize the book's authenticity. That seems to have paid off.
Shauna Roberts author of "Like Mayflies in a Stream," says "The lyrical language of The Blood of Titans quickly drew me into this richly textured fantasy novel by C. Michael Forsyth. I could smell the air, hear the music, and see the towns and sea and grasslands and mountains."
I'll be promoting it through book clubs and will be on the road again this summer at a slew of festivals.
September 18, 2012
Book by Bram Stoker's Great-grandnephew
By C. Michael Forsyth
The story of Dracula ends with the blood-drinking fiend destroyed and newlyweds Jonathan and Mina Harker living happily ever after.
Or does it? In the book Dracula the Un-Dead, an exciting sequel to Bram Stoker’s classic written by the author’s great-grandnephew Dacre Stoker, the tale of terror continues to unfold.
I had the good fortune to run into Dacre at the Horror Writer’s Association’s Bram Stoker Weekend, an annual gathering that pays tribute to his famous forebear. A courtly resident of South Carolina, he was quite generous with his time. After his presentation on Bram, we chatted about the extensive research that went into the novel. We traded books, and I’ve finally had a chance to sink my teeth into this juicy vampire yarn.
The book is set in 1912, about 25 years after the events in Dracula, and the band of heroes who put the vampire down are in a sorry state.
Jonathan Harker, once a paragon of Victorian virtue, has been reduced to a whoring, alcoholic wretch. He’s tortured by his inability to sexually satisfy his wife the way that her superhuman “dark prince” could.
Mina, forever tainted by her sip of Dracula’s blood, remains eternally young like Dorian Gray. Guilt-ridden, she counts her youthful appearance as a curse, not a blessing.
Dr. Van Helsing, the wise and fearless vampire killer, is now a frail, vulnerable old man terrified of death.
Dr. Seward, once the esteemed head of the asylum that housed Dracula’s bug-eating flunky Renfield, is himself a drug-addicted lunatic.
Aristocratic Arthur Holmwood, who was forced to stake his fiancée Lucy, is a bitter recluse who blames his former friends for her fate and is driven by a death wish.
New characters are introduced, most prominently Elizabeth Bathory, a real-life relative of Vlad the Impaler, the historical Dracula. The 16th Century noblewoman was the most prolific serial killer in history, making dudes like Jack the Ripper and Ted Bundy look like pikers. The Bloody Countess tortured and killed at least 650 servant girls, bathing in their blood in a quest for immortality. Here, she too is a vampire – and a far more vicious one than the gentlemanly Count Dracula.
Also taking the stage is Basarab, a handsome and charismatic actor who is Bathory’s hated foe.
Details from the original are cleverly woven into the novel and supporting characters like Renfield and Seward are fleshed out with interesting backstories. Arthur Holmwood, usually little more than an uptight prig in movies, is a fully realized character who’s led a colorful life of adventure. Even Quincy Morris, the Texan who almost never makes the cut in film versions, is given his due.
Dacre and his co-author Ian Holt, in addition to having access to family lore, dug deep into original sources to find nuggets that enrich the sequel. Dacre traveled to the Rosenbach Museum to comb through Bram Stoker’s notes. Among the fascinating tidbits he uncovered was the character sketch for a detective Bram toyed with including in Dracula but ultimately abandoned. Dacre resurrects Inspector Cotford in the sequel.
Equally painstaking research into early 20th Century London is evident in the authoritative descriptions of locations such as the Lyceum Theater that bring the setting vividly to life. Real people of the time show up, including boozing stage legend John Barrymore — and, surprisingly, Bram Stoker himself!
Yet despite the loving attention to detail, Dracula the Un-Dead is not entirely true to the original in that it inverts Dracula’s nature, reimagining him as a Byronic hero rather than a monster. In a sense, the book is not a sequel to Dracula as Bram Stoker told the story so much as a sequel to the story as DRACULA would have told it. (It made me think of the kids’ book My Side of the Story, in which Sleeping Beauty is retold from the witch Maleficent’s perspective.)
In turning the Victorian worldview upside down Dracula the Un-Dead is likely quite different from the sequel Bram Stoker would have written. But who cares? Do we really need another follow-up to Dracula that carries forward the plot on its trajectory in an easily anticipated way? We’ve already seen movies and comics in which Mina’s son Quincy Harker is an elderly hero waging a crusade against the undead.
Here instead Quincy is a naïve young aspiring actor who puts his dreams of stage success above all else and fawns over his idol Basarab. (Quincy is so clueless he makes Jimmy Olsen look like Albert Einstein). That’s only the first of many surprises the book offers. Co-author Holt is a screenwriter and the fast-paced, action-packed novel is perfectly suited for a movie adaptation.
I asked Dacre whether the Stoker clan was still living off “all the Dracula money.” He gave a wistful smile and said no. Sadly, he explained, the family lost the U.S. copyright to Dracula through a clerical error early on and it’s been in the public domain ever since. They haven’t been paid a dime by Hollywood since the 1931 Bela Lugosi movie and unlike the kin of Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs, have had no control over the wildy popular character and his many — often embarrassingly stupid — incarnations. One of Dacre’s goals was to reclaim Dracula for his family.
“I think Bram would be proud that a family member has taken this initiative and finally done justice to the legacy he created,” he writes in the afterward.
ON THE HOUR OF THE BEAST FRONT…
I attended Dragon*con 2012 in Atlanta to promote my horror novel Hour of the Beast and pick up tips on independent filmmaking. Some great panels on subjects ranging from movie pre-production and distribution to the future of black science fiction. The highlight was Stan Lee talking to a packed ballroom. The comic-industry giant is feisty as ever, his brain still bubbling with creativity. Of course, I didn’t completely ignore the gazillion gals in skimpy costumes. Some were marvelously imaginative, others not so much. You’d think a guy would never get tired of seeing women in that barely-there bandage getup from “The Fifth Element,” but after number 30, I did!
To see the cool art that accompanies the article, visit http://freedomshammer.wordpress.com
The story of Dracula ends with the blood-drinking fiend destroyed and newlyweds Jonathan and Mina Harker living happily ever after.
Or does it? In the book Dracula the Un-Dead, an exciting sequel to Bram Stoker’s classic written by the author’s great-grandnephew Dacre Stoker, the tale of terror continues to unfold.
I had the good fortune to run into Dacre at the Horror Writer’s Association’s Bram Stoker Weekend, an annual gathering that pays tribute to his famous forebear. A courtly resident of South Carolina, he was quite generous with his time. After his presentation on Bram, we chatted about the extensive research that went into the novel. We traded books, and I’ve finally had a chance to sink my teeth into this juicy vampire yarn.
The book is set in 1912, about 25 years after the events in Dracula, and the band of heroes who put the vampire down are in a sorry state.
Jonathan Harker, once a paragon of Victorian virtue, has been reduced to a whoring, alcoholic wretch. He’s tortured by his inability to sexually satisfy his wife the way that her superhuman “dark prince” could.
Mina, forever tainted by her sip of Dracula’s blood, remains eternally young like Dorian Gray. Guilt-ridden, she counts her youthful appearance as a curse, not a blessing.
Dr. Van Helsing, the wise and fearless vampire killer, is now a frail, vulnerable old man terrified of death.
Dr. Seward, once the esteemed head of the asylum that housed Dracula’s bug-eating flunky Renfield, is himself a drug-addicted lunatic.
Aristocratic Arthur Holmwood, who was forced to stake his fiancée Lucy, is a bitter recluse who blames his former friends for her fate and is driven by a death wish.
New characters are introduced, most prominently Elizabeth Bathory, a real-life relative of Vlad the Impaler, the historical Dracula. The 16th Century noblewoman was the most prolific serial killer in history, making dudes like Jack the Ripper and Ted Bundy look like pikers. The Bloody Countess tortured and killed at least 650 servant girls, bathing in their blood in a quest for immortality. Here, she too is a vampire – and a far more vicious one than the gentlemanly Count Dracula.
Also taking the stage is Basarab, a handsome and charismatic actor who is Bathory’s hated foe.
Details from the original are cleverly woven into the novel and supporting characters like Renfield and Seward are fleshed out with interesting backstories. Arthur Holmwood, usually little more than an uptight prig in movies, is a fully realized character who’s led a colorful life of adventure. Even Quincy Morris, the Texan who almost never makes the cut in film versions, is given his due.
Dacre and his co-author Ian Holt, in addition to having access to family lore, dug deep into original sources to find nuggets that enrich the sequel. Dacre traveled to the Rosenbach Museum to comb through Bram Stoker’s notes. Among the fascinating tidbits he uncovered was the character sketch for a detective Bram toyed with including in Dracula but ultimately abandoned. Dacre resurrects Inspector Cotford in the sequel.
Equally painstaking research into early 20th Century London is evident in the authoritative descriptions of locations such as the Lyceum Theater that bring the setting vividly to life. Real people of the time show up, including boozing stage legend John Barrymore — and, surprisingly, Bram Stoker himself!
Yet despite the loving attention to detail, Dracula the Un-Dead is not entirely true to the original in that it inverts Dracula’s nature, reimagining him as a Byronic hero rather than a monster. In a sense, the book is not a sequel to Dracula as Bram Stoker told the story so much as a sequel to the story as DRACULA would have told it. (It made me think of the kids’ book My Side of the Story, in which Sleeping Beauty is retold from the witch Maleficent’s perspective.)
In turning the Victorian worldview upside down Dracula the Un-Dead is likely quite different from the sequel Bram Stoker would have written. But who cares? Do we really need another follow-up to Dracula that carries forward the plot on its trajectory in an easily anticipated way? We’ve already seen movies and comics in which Mina’s son Quincy Harker is an elderly hero waging a crusade against the undead.
Here instead Quincy is a naïve young aspiring actor who puts his dreams of stage success above all else and fawns over his idol Basarab. (Quincy is so clueless he makes Jimmy Olsen look like Albert Einstein). That’s only the first of many surprises the book offers. Co-author Holt is a screenwriter and the fast-paced, action-packed novel is perfectly suited for a movie adaptation.
I asked Dacre whether the Stoker clan was still living off “all the Dracula money.” He gave a wistful smile and said no. Sadly, he explained, the family lost the U.S. copyright to Dracula through a clerical error early on and it’s been in the public domain ever since. They haven’t been paid a dime by Hollywood since the 1931 Bela Lugosi movie and unlike the kin of Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs, have had no control over the wildy popular character and his many — often embarrassingly stupid — incarnations. One of Dacre’s goals was to reclaim Dracula for his family.
“I think Bram would be proud that a family member has taken this initiative and finally done justice to the legacy he created,” he writes in the afterward.
ON THE HOUR OF THE BEAST FRONT…
I attended Dragon*con 2012 in Atlanta to promote my horror novel Hour of the Beast and pick up tips on independent filmmaking. Some great panels on subjects ranging from movie pre-production and distribution to the future of black science fiction. The highlight was Stan Lee talking to a packed ballroom. The comic-industry giant is feisty as ever, his brain still bubbling with creativity. Of course, I didn’t completely ignore the gazillion gals in skimpy costumes. Some were marvelously imaginative, others not so much. You’d think a guy would never get tired of seeing women in that barely-there bandage getup from “The Fifth Element,” but after number 30, I did!
To see the cool art that accompanies the article, visit http://freedomshammer.wordpress.com
August 16, 2011
My First Horror Convention.
I’ve busted my cherry! I attended my very first horror convention, Flashback Weekend in Chicago, August 12 through 14, to hawk my horror novel Hour of the Beast.
It was a blast hanging out with horror fans and hobnobbing with fellow genre writers, comic book creators and movie makers.
Following the suggestion of a pal, Pirates of Savannah author Tarrin Lupo, I brought along a prop: a severed werewolf hand floating in a jar. Now I thought the thing would hardly raise an eyebrow in a dealers’ room packed with horror memorabilia and props crafted by Hollywood special effects experts and haunted house designers. But it worked like a charm, drawing curious attendees to my table like flies. These hardcore horror fans who live for special effects AND creators of those effects thought it was incredibly cool and wanted to know its history. I think what sold it was the yellowed paper describing it as having been “displayed by the Revlos Bros. Traveling Circus circa 1928." That and the REAL BONE at the stump -- although one skeptical 8-year-old girl suggested the hand “should be scientifically tested.”
At the convention were movie legends Robert Englund of “Nightmare of Elm Street” fame, “Aliens” star Lance Henrikson, scream queen Linnea Quigley from “Return of the Living Dead,” Michael Booker of “The Walking Dead,” and “Hellraiser” stars Doug Bradley (Pinhead) and Ashley Lawrence -- who now does really great and majorly creepy art.
I got to catch a sneak preview of the “Fright Night” remake and I’ll post my review in next week’s blog. Also stay tuned for the video from the Zombie Pinup Pageant. You haven’t lived until you see two dozen exhibitionists in full zombie makeup strutting their stuff.
Speaking of which, the biggest surprise for me was the high proportion of female attendees -- and how young and hot they were! An extraordinary number of them were in the company of geeky CHUD-like boyfriends. I mentioned to my wife how amazing it is that so many beautiful, brainy women are attracted to these nerdy, creative-type oddballs. Kaye, a physician who looks like a supermodel, responded, “Yeah, Mike. Really amazing.”
It was a blast hanging out with horror fans and hobnobbing with fellow genre writers, comic book creators and movie makers.
Following the suggestion of a pal, Pirates of Savannah author Tarrin Lupo, I brought along a prop: a severed werewolf hand floating in a jar. Now I thought the thing would hardly raise an eyebrow in a dealers’ room packed with horror memorabilia and props crafted by Hollywood special effects experts and haunted house designers. But it worked like a charm, drawing curious attendees to my table like flies. These hardcore horror fans who live for special effects AND creators of those effects thought it was incredibly cool and wanted to know its history. I think what sold it was the yellowed paper describing it as having been “displayed by the Revlos Bros. Traveling Circus circa 1928." That and the REAL BONE at the stump -- although one skeptical 8-year-old girl suggested the hand “should be scientifically tested.”
At the convention were movie legends Robert Englund of “Nightmare of Elm Street” fame, “Aliens” star Lance Henrikson, scream queen Linnea Quigley from “Return of the Living Dead,” Michael Booker of “The Walking Dead,” and “Hellraiser” stars Doug Bradley (Pinhead) and Ashley Lawrence -- who now does really great and majorly creepy art.
I got to catch a sneak preview of the “Fright Night” remake and I’ll post my review in next week’s blog. Also stay tuned for the video from the Zombie Pinup Pageant. You haven’t lived until you see two dozen exhibitionists in full zombie makeup strutting their stuff.
Speaking of which, the biggest surprise for me was the high proportion of female attendees -- and how young and hot they were! An extraordinary number of them were in the company of geeky CHUD-like boyfriends. I mentioned to my wife how amazing it is that so many beautiful, brainy women are attracted to these nerdy, creative-type oddballs. Kaye, a physician who looks like a supermodel, responded, “Yeah, Mike. Really amazing.”
May 23, 2011
My book signing at Yale College
I am a Yale grad and my reunion is the weekend of May 27. I'll be signing books at the bookstore. What an honor!
I might even buy my first Yale sweatshirt. Never owned one in the past, because I feared people might think I was bragging. On the other hand, I did wear a Harvard one from time to time. If someone asked if I went there, I'd say, "Naw, I wasn't smart enough to get into Harvard...I went to Yale."
I might even buy my first Yale sweatshirt. Never owned one in the past, because I feared people might think I was bragging. On the other hand, I did wear a Harvard one from time to time. If someone asked if I went there, I'd say, "Naw, I wasn't smart enough to get into Harvard...I went to Yale."
