Douglas Smith's blog

Well, I'm a tad late with this update, but I'm way behind on updates in general. I'd blogged earlier about having my first story, "Spirit Dance," picked for this excellent anthology that celebrates the depth and range of Aurora Award winning short stories over the three decades since the award was first presented in Halifax in 1980. The anthology includes work by James Alan Gardner, Isaac Szpindel, Eileen Kernaghan, Daniel Sernine, Robert J. Sawyer, Julie Czerneda, Élisabeth Vonarburg, Candas Jane Dorsey, Yves Meynard, David Nickle, Karl Schroeder, Edo Van Belkom, Hayden Trenholm, Laurent McAllister, and of course, myself, with an introduction by Jean-Louis Trudel.

"BY HER HAND, SHE DRAWS YOU DOWN," the short film based on my story of the same name, is an official selection of the 2010 DragonCon Independent Film Festival!!! DragonCon is a huge 4-day genre convention with over 50,000 attendees spread over 4 hotels in Atlanta, complete with its own film festival. Congratulations to the cast and crew! Here's a list of the BHHSDYD's upcoming film festival appearances so far:

• DragonCon Film Festival, Sept 3-6, Atlanta, GA
• Killer Film Fest, Nov 12-14, Foxboro, MA
• Dark Carnival Film Festival, Nov 19-21, Bloomington, Indiana

Here are some reviews of the original story:

"...a haunting variant on the vampire legend with an understated and brutal ending."

—Publishers Weekly

“...delightfully creepy...about a young woman who is driven by a mysterious hunger to sketch people and steal their life force as her horrified lover looks on.”

 

—Booklist, the review journal of the American Library Assoc.

"I was reminded of the tone of some of Harlan Ellison’s best work..."

—The Fix

“...a title that rules. ...psychic vampirism, creepy street performers, the horrors of small coastal towns. And Smith took the story somewhere that surprised me. The twist is sustained.”

—Tangent Online

Check out here for the complete story behind the movie, including a trailer, photos from the shoot, and some very cool sketches used in the film.

All ChiZine Publication titles, including my new collection, Chimerascope, are now available in several popular ebook formats through a number of online retailers, including Amazon (Kindle), Crossroad Press (PDF, MOBI, and EPUB), and Wowio (PDF). And they're all DRM free!

ChiZine co-publisher Brett Savory: "From the beginning, we've been plugged in digitally. We used Twitter and Facebook to reach out to fans and they responded. We think e-books will grow, and grow fast, as mobile devices like smartphones and things like the iPad become the way people consume digital entertainment. And though some say there are risks of piracy, we're not using DRM technology, which we see as getting in the way of our user's ability to enjoy our titles."

To order Chimerascope in paperback or ebook format, check out the ordering links here.

Thanks to Mark Leslie (friend, fellow writer and editor of the most excellent anthology, Campus Chills), I recently had the chance to join Mark via telephone when he appeared in the studio on the syndicated "Night Fright" Radio Show talking about CAMPUS CHILLS with host Brent Holland.

The show also features fellow Campus Chills contributor, Nancy Kilpatrick, as well as Brent reading part of a hot "adult content" scene from Sephera Giron's story.

I've also had a couple of recent interviews around my new collection, Chimerascope, including a podcast interview with Joseph Planta on TheCommentary.ca, and an interview with me in my local Markham paper, the Markham Economist & Sun.

You can find links to all of these interviews and more on my Interviews page.

I've written earlier on the indie film based on my short horror story "By Her Hand, She Draws You Down" by director Anthony Sumner of TinyCore Pictures. Anthony has finished the post-production work and is now ready to submit the film to festivals. The film will also be coming out as part of a horror movie DVD called "The Gallery of Fear." You can check out the official "By Her Hand..." web site for festival schedules, info on the cast and crew, and news and updates.

My friend and fellow creative person, Mici Gold, is currently training to bicycle over 200km over two days in the "Ride for the Cure" event in June. Mici has to raise $2,500 to be allowed to ride, and she needs your support. If you'd like to help make a difference for people suffering from cancer or whose families have been impacted by cancer, please consider supporting Mici in her ride by donating online here. Mici and everyone affected by cancer will thank you!

Update: Contest closed April 9, 2010

Here's your last chance to enter the free giveaway contest for Chimerascope on Goodreads, the social networking site for book lovers. Here's the link to enter the contest. You have to be a Goodreads member, but that costs nothing, and if you love books, you'll enjoy this site. The giveaway contest ends shortly after midnight on April 9, so enter now for a chance to win one of two free copies.

I'll be appearing at Ad Astra, the excellent annual Toronto SF&F con in April. Ad Astra always features a strong literary program as well as the expected media focus. Location: Crowne Plaza Toronto Don Valley Hotel, 1250 Eglinton Avenue East.

Here's my schedule for panels, signings, and readings, plus the official Toronto Chimerascope launch:

Liviu Suciu provides another incredibly positive review of my new collection, Chimerascope in his Fantasy Book Critic review blog. Here are some excerpts:

"Douglas Smith's debut collection Impossibilia, which I reviewed last year and which has the lead story "Bouquet of Flowers in a Vase, by Van Gogh" (one of those rare "become a fan for life" pieces), made reading Chimerascope a must as soon as I have found out about it. Adding that it has been published by Chi-Zine publications from whom I have read only quality works so far, and Chimerascope came with the highest expectations for me, and it matched them and more, with several mind-blowing stories in an ensemble of all-high-level ones.

... The stories range from far-flung sf and time-travel, to fantasy-like landscapes and even towards straight horror, so Chimerascope, as befits its name, is a changeable entity, one that cannot be easily confined into a narrow pattern and will appeal to fans to all kinds of speculative fiction.

... In conclusion. I would say that Chimerascope (A+ overall) confirms for me what Impossibilia affirmed, namely that Douglas Smith is an extraordinary author whom every lover of quality speculative fiction should read."

The review includes story-by-story reviews as well. You can read the entire review here.

Quill and Quire, the magazine of the Canadian book trade, gives Chimerascope a *starred* review:

"...Chimerascope is a massively enjoyable trek through the far-fetched, the horrifying, and the flat-out weird, all filtered through Smith's remarkable imagination and prodigious talent. ... Although Smith's tales may centre on the fantastic, what is immediately notable is his steady grasp of character, which lends humanity to even the most absurd situations. The stories in this collection traverse genres and styles -- from outright horror to witty surrealism to martial-arts mythology -- without missing a beat.

'The Boys are Back in Town,' set in a tavern managed by a fallen god, posits a reality where 'lawyers flirted with nymphs, tourists played pinball with satyrs, and professors debated hydras…Hydras aren’t too bright, but just try getting a word in against multiple heads.'

'The Dancer at the Red Door,' with its mix of oblique horror, urban fantasy, and monsters equipped with pincers extending 'from each side of a slit-like mouth,' recalls Clive Barker at his most disturbingly fanciful. 'State of Disorder' layers a time-travel scenario over a polite dinner between colleagues, with unsettling results. The closing story, the post-apocalyptic narrative 'Memories of the Dead Man,' contains echoes of Stephen King.

Chimerascope is a sterling set, with nary a weak or disposable entry. Smith's writing, evocative yet understated, gracefully brings to life his imagined realms.”

— Cory Redekop, Quill and Quire, Mar 2010