Cemetery Dance Publications has announced that Seven Stories by Brian James Freeman, which is only available on Amazon.com, is now free for everyone this week only at this special link: Seven Stories on The Kindle If you have a Kindle, or the Kindle App, or even if you just want to try out the free Kindle Cloud for the first time, now is a great time to grab a copy of the collection before it goes back up to the regular retail price on Friday! (Also: because these stories are going to appear in three new collections down the road, the eBook will probably disappear from Amazon later this year, but those who download the eBook now will have it for as long as you want, of course.) Description: This mini-collection contains seven of Brian James Freeman's short stories that are currently available individually on Amazon. Save $4 if you order them together in this great bundle! Freeman's best work has always been his short fiction, which is haunting and beautifully written. These stories feature characters who are searching for answers to deeply troubling questions, and there's often a real emotional punch before you reach the end. This bundle won't be available at this price forever, so don't wait to download your copy! About the Stories: Walking With the Ghosts of Pier 13: A grueling summer of horror is finally winding down, and Jeremy is one of the wandering survivors who can't come to grips with the acts of terror that have been ripping his nation apart. His destination today is Pier 13, the ocean front amusement park his family visited every summer when he was a child, and his purpose for coming here is simple: he wants to understand why so many people have been dying in such violent acts... but that might not be the only answer he finds at the old docks. Running Rain: In the year since their son was the first victim of a serial killer known as the The Riverside Strangler, a devastated husband and wife have tried to pretend life can somehow be normal again... but the secrets they're keeping from each other are pushing their relationship to the brink. To make matters worse, The Riverside Strangler was never caught, and now the husband is obsessed with running along the river at night, searching for the truth about why his son died: a truth he may not really want to know... Answering the Call: A young man's very unusual job is taking a heavy toll on him. He stays in homes during the owner's funeral. Someone needs to be there to answer the phone, receive deliveries, and deter thieves who might have seen the obituary in the newspaper and decided this would be a good time for a break-in. The young man has seen a lot of strange things over the years in the homes of the dead, and sometimes his job is truly a matter of life and death... The Punishment Room: Assuming Michael manages to escape the Punishment Room with his sanity and his life, he isn't sure if he'll be able to go on living with the knowledge of what he did to survive... but then again, that's a dilemma he wouldn't mind confronting, given the finality of the alternative. What They Left Behind: There's something lurking in the basement of the old Timlico office building. This thing is evil, the result of the tragic fire that killed dozens of Timlico employees and sent that business spiraling into bankruptcy -- or maybe the thing was the cause of the fire. Scott and a few friends will learn more about this thing before the day is over, including some very bad news for everyone: the thing in the basement is still hungry. A Dreamlike State: Daniel is driving back to his hometown for the first time in six years because his father is dying, but he knows there's more than a sick patriarch waiting for him in the house where he grew up. He has a heart full of questions, and all of his childhood ghosts are patiently waiting for him... and they have a few questions of their own. Where Sunlight Sleeps: A grieving father and his young son, both dealing with their loss in their own ways. A Saturday ritual, retracing the last steps of the woman they loved more than any other. A search for the place where the sunlight sleeps, where bad feelings can be released. And a trip down a memory lane lined with jagged edges and vicious traps that just won't let them go. (The only short story currently listed on Amazon that is missing from this bundle is "The Silent Attic," which is an experimental piece closely related to "A Dreamlike Sleep." If you like "A Dreamlike Sleep," be sure to download "The Silent Attic" to see another glimpse of that same world.) You can get your free Kindle edition here: Seven Stories on The Kindle

Night Shade Books has released a reprint edition of Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse, edited by John Joseph Adams. The anthology is out in both paperback and digital formats. Description: Famine, Death, War, and Pestilence: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the harbingers of Armageddon - these are our guides through the Wastelands From the Book of Revelations to The Road Warrior; from A Canticle for Leibowitz to The Road, storytellers have long imagined the end of the world, weaving eschatological tales of catastrophe, chaos, and calamity. In doing so, these visionary authors have addressed one of the most challenging and enduring themes of imaginative fiction: the nature of life in the aftermath of total societal collapse. Gathering together the best post-apocalyptic literature of the last two decades from many of today's most renowned authors of speculative fiction, including George R.R. Martin, Gene Wolfe, Orson Scott Card, Carol Emshwiller, Jonathan Lethem, Octavia E. Butler, and Stephen King, Wastelands explores the scientific, psychological, and philosophical questions of what it means to remain human in the wake of Armageddon. Whether the end of the world comes through nuclear war, ecological disaster, or cosmological cataclysm, these are tales of survivors, in some cases struggling to rebuild the society that was, in others, merely surviving, scrounging for food in depopulated ruins and defending themselves against monsters, mutants, and marauders. You can order both the paperback and digital editions from Amazon here: Wastelands

AmazonCrossing has released a reprint edition Hallgrimur Helgason's The Hitman's Guide to Housecleaning in paperback, digital, and audio editions. Description: Toxic kills people for a living. Bad people. For a living. So it’s okay. Or at least that’s how he explains it to girlfriends who are a bit uncomfortable when they discover how he pays for their dates. One would think that he has killed his conscience as well if it weren’t for its unexpected arrival when he is forced to kill a holy man, Father Friendly, in JFK airport as he flees NYC. Now posing as Friendly to dodge the FBI, Toxic finds himself on a plane hurtling toward Reykjavík, Iceland. This is a city that he reads in the plane’s travel magazine is “the hottest city in Europe, the capital of cool.” A place where the nights are long and the girls are bright. It all sounds promising until Toxic steps off the plane and is greeted by two religious fanatics. He has almost forgotten. He is Friendly now. And apparently he is a famous televangelist. Good Moon Door and Sick Reader (Toxic’s English translation of his new hosts’ impossible Icelandic names) set him up in their squeaky clean and godly home. They expect Friendly to appear on their evening television show. So much for keeping a low profile from the feds. It’s only a matter of time before Toxic is on the run again, with nowhere to hide in the endless daylight and nowhere to run on the small island, population 300,000. When the man they thought was Friendly reappears at Good Moon Door and Sick Reader’s door as the sin-ridden and helpless Toxic, his fate is left entirely in their hands. Will they report him like good citizens of their country or save him like good soldiers of the Lord? Check it out on Amazon: The Hitman's Guide to Housecleaning

Cemetery Dance Publications has announced a surprise in-stock Signed Limited Edition Chapbook: Horror Drive-In Presents An All-Night Short Story Marathon edited by Mark Sieber. Description: Horror Drive-In Presents An All-Night Short Story Marathon is a signed Limited Edition glossy chapbook featuring short stories by Bill Pronzini, Harry Shannon, Brian James Freeman, Norman Prentiss, and Ronald Malfi. Edited by Mark Sieber, the founder of the Horror Drive-in website and a columnist in Cemetery Dance magazine, these tales are sure to take you back to the days when books were printed on pulpy pages, and you watched scary movies outdoors under the stars. These stories are both scary and unsettling, and this chapbook is signed by all five contributors and the editor. Table of Contents:

• "Why Horror Drive-In?" by Mark Sieber
• "Angelique" by Bill Pronzini
• "Control" by Norman Prentiss
• "Night Nurse" by Harry Shannon
• "Where Sunlight Sleeps" by Brian James Freeman
• "The Dinner Party" by Ronald Malfi

You can order directly from Cemetery Dance Publications here: Horror Drive-In Presents

IDW Publishing continues expanding its prose publishing activities with a two-month-long "e-singles" promotion featuring all-new stories set in the gleefully gory Zombies Vs. Robots universe. The property was first published in 2006 as a two-issue mini-series from the creative team of artist Ashley Wood and writer/editor Chris Ryall. Helpless to resist ZVR's rowdy mix of clunky, wise-cracking robots trying to stem the zombie apocalypse (the fault of clumsy scientists), with the remnants of mankind caught in the middle. There have been multiple ZVR miniseries, and in 2010, Sony Pictures optioned the film rights for Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes production company. Beginning on January 20, IDW will digitally release one new ZVR prose story each week for eight weeks. "We're calling this our '8x8' plan," explains Jeff Conner, the IDW contributing editor responsible for the ZVR prose line. "Each week, from January 20 to March 9, we'll debut a new short story torn from the festering jaws of the shambling, clanking world that is Zombies Vs. Robots. And these all-new tales will be a tasty $0.99 each — it's our New Year's gift to the brain-eating reading public." "Pammi Shaw: Creator of Gods and Also Blogger" is the first 8x8 offering, and comes from the multi-talented actress/writer Brea Grant (Heroes, Dexter, Halloween II). Told via blog entries, her story extends the recent Zombies vs. Robots: Undercity comic book miniseries, which introduced readers to the young blogger from India, and ended with the members of an elite subterranean enclave underneath the Washington Monument being wiped out by ravenous zombies — or so we are led to believe. "I wanted to put someone in one of the most difficult places possible by ripping away her community, family, and everything she knows, leaving her with her own thoughts," states Grant, whose writing credits include the IDW comics We Will Bury You and Suicide Girls. "I wanted this person to deal with religion, love, gods and sanity all alone, separated from the raging violence outside. And who better to put in that position than a jaded, flippant teenage blogger named Pammi?" "We're quite committed to e-singles," Conner noted. "They're such an effective way to present our scintillating shambling dead vs. gun-crazed warbot content. Going exclusively digital with 8x8 was, as we say around IDW, a no-brainer. For sure we'll be doing more digital-only promotions as the year unfolds." Debuting weekly starting on January 20, 2012, the ZVR e-singles will be available on the Kindle, Nook and in iBooks. The full 8x8 schedule is: Brea Grant - "Pammi Shaw: Creator of Gods and Also Blogger" (1/20/12) UnderCity's lone survivor continues her blog and meets (creates?) a digital deity with its own ideas about fighting the zombie apocalypse. Brea Grant is sometimes a writer (We Will Bury You; Suicide Girls), sometimes an actress (Heroes; Dexter; Halloween 2) and all-the-time a nice person. She is currently directing her first film. Steve Rasnic Tem - "To Denver (with Hiram Battling Zombies)" (1/27/12) What happens when high-test chronic is tainted with potent zombie blood? Will it be a high to die for? Multiple award-winning author Steve Rasnic Tem has published over 300 short stories in the areas of fantasy, science fiction, crime, and horror. His latest novel is Deadfall Hotel. Nancy A. Collins - "Angus: Zombie-Versus-Robot Fighter" (2/03/12) A young man is trained by his scientist father to fight zombies, robot-style. What could go wrong? Nancy A. Collins is the author of numerous novels and short stories, including the best-sellingSunglasses After Dark, and was a writer for DC Comics' Swamp Thing. She is a recipient of the Bram Stoker and British Fantasy Awards, and has been nominated for the World Fantasy, Eisner & International Horror Guild awards. Left Hand Magic, the newest installment in the acclaimed Golgotham series, is now available. Nick Mamatas - "Throckmorton's Bad Day" (2/10/12) Years before the zombie apocalypse, an enterprising and amoral young college student (later to become "Dr. Throckmorton in the ZVR comics) tests experimental street drugs on the local users. The results will have unforeseen consequences for his future self. Nick Mamatas is the author of several unusual novels, including The Damned Highway with Brian Keene, and The Last Weekend. His short fiction has appeared in Asimov's SF, Long Island Noir and many other magazines and anthologies. Amber Benson - "Mademoiselle Consuela and Her Army of One" (2/17/12) Like a princess locked in a tower, Consuela lives on a secluded island with only her loyal warbot for company. Then the pirates come... Amber Benson is an actor, filmmaker, novelist and amateur occultist who sings in the shower. Best known for her work as Tara Maclay on Buffy The Vampire Slayer, she is also the author of the Calliope Reaper-Jones series and the co-director (with Adam Busch) of the feature film, Drones. Don Webb - "The Wizards vs. the Bots" (2/24/12) Can black magic control zombies? What about warbots? Don Webb has 20 published books ranging from the nonfiction occult classic Uncle Setnakt's Nightbook to the best weird west book, Webb's Weird Wild West. Kaaron Warren - "The River of Memory" (3/02/12) An Amazon goddess thinks she can restore humanity to zombies; a warbot has doubts. Kaaron Warren is an award-winning horror and science-fiction writer based in Australia. She has two short story collections and three novels in print. Lincoln Crisler — "Kettletop's Revisionary Plot" (3/09/12) A distraught scientist travels back in time in a desperate attempt to save his wife and prevent the discovery of the deadly Z Virus. Lincoln Crisler is author, editor and reviewer as well as an active-duty soldier in the United States Army. His books include Magick & Misery and Wild. He is the editor of the dark-superhero anthology Corrupts Absolutely? He has served as a contributing writer for The Horror Library and Shroud Magazine. Analog media fans needn't worry that IDW's new ZVR stories will only be available in e-pub formats. "We aren't abandoning print in any way," confirms Conner. "From the beginning we designed the ZVR prose program to have distinct identities for print and digital. So while it's true that there will never be print incarnations of any of the 8x8 series themselves, we do have a full slate of ZVR collections and novellas in production on the print side; the '8x8' stories will appear there, just in different contexts." The first print collection will be This Means War!, set to appear in March, 2012.

Legendary British film studio Hammer has teamed up with Random House to publish new horror stories beginning with Helen Dunmore's The Greatcoat, which is scheduled to be released in a digital edition in early February. Description: A terrifyingly atmospheric ghost story by the Orange-prize-winning Helen Dunmore. In the summer of 1954, newly wed Isabel Carey arrives in a Yorkshire town with her husband Philip. As a GP he spends much of his time working, while Isabel tries hard to adjust to the realities of married life. Life is not easy: she feels out-of-place and constantly judged by the people around her, so she spends much of her time alone. One cold winter night, Isabel finds an old RAF greatcoat in the back of a cupboard that she uses to help keep warm. Once wrapped in the coat she is beset by dreams. And not long afterwards, while her husband is out, she is startled to hear a knock at her window, and to meet for the first time the intense gaze of a young Air Force pilot, handsome, blond and blue-eyed, staring in at her from outside. His name is Alec, and his powerfully haunting presence both disturbs and excites Isabel. Her initial alarm soon fades, and they begin a delicious affair. But nothing could have prepared her for the truth about Alec's life, nor the impact it will have on her own marriage. Other titles scheduled to follow include work by Jeanette Winterson, Melvin Burgess and Tim Lebbon.

Following the overwhelming success of the second Robert Downey Jr. film blockbuster, Airship 27 Productions is pleased to present a brand new mystery suspense novel starring the Great Detective; Sherlock Holmes - The Baron's Revenge by Gary Lovisi. In 1902 Sir James Damery enlisted the aid of Sherlock Holmes to prevent the daughter of an old friend from marrying a womanizing Austrian named Adelbert Gruner who was suspected of murdering his first wife. Dr.Watson chronicled the case as "The Adventure of the Illustrious Client." By its conclusion, Gruner was exposed to the young lady when Holmes came into possession of an album listing his many amorous conquests. Then a former prostitute mistress took her own revenge by throwing acid in his face and permanently disfiguring him. Holmes believed the matter concluded. He is proven wrong when a hideous murder occurs rife with evidence indicating the Baron has returned. Soon the Great Detective will learn he has been targeted for revenge in a cruel and sadistic fashion. Not only does the Baron wish his death but he is obsessed with causing Holmes emotional suffering. He desires nothing less that the complete and utter destruction of the Great Detective in body and soul. Now Gary Lovisi spins a fast paced tale of horror and intrigue that is both suspenseful and poignant, all the while remaining true to Arthur Conan Doyle's original stories. The Baron's Revenge is a thrilling sequel to a classic Holmes adventure fans will soon be applauding. It is a gripping suspense thriller with a madman out to destroy both the Great Detective and his loyal ally, Dr.Watson. It features a cover by Rob Davis and digital painter Shane Evans, with nine black and white interior illustrations by Rob. Airship 27 Hangar store is selling digital PDF copies you can download on most e-readers for only $3, or you can go to Indy Planet to purchase a hard copy for only $13.99 (plus shipping & handling). Airship 27 packages and publishes anthologies and novels in the pulp magazine tradition.