The end of the world has come and gone. The dead have risen, and they’ve won. No more rallying of the troops. No miracle cure or weapon. Just lots of dead people walking around. If the living dead won, what would the world be like? This collection of eighteen tales-including entries from David Wellington, Jack Ketchum, and Gary A. Braunbeck-take up the call to answer that question. People go to work. Have sex. Get drunk. Fall in love. Take revenge. Raise families. Watch TV. Laugh. Mourn. Murder. Pray. The world is dead, but life goes on.

The World Is Dead is available now at Amazon.com.

DriveThruComics.com and 2000 AD are proud to announce that many new comic book titles will be available as digital comic downloads. New comic titles from 2000 AD include: Judge Dredd, Slaine, Rogue Trooper, ABC Warriors, Alan Moore’s Future Shocks and other great characters that fans will be able to enjoy in digital format.

For almost thirty years, one man has dominated the British comic scene. He is judge, jury and executioner, a merciless, far-future lawman delivering justice with an iron fist on the mean streets of Mega-City One. He is Judge Dredd! Available now at DriveThruComics.com are Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 1, Judge Dredd: The Pit, and Judge Dredd vs. Aliens.

DriveThruHorror.com has all kinds of spooky stories, terrible tales and features some of the best horror authors available today. One of our favorite genres is the pulse pounding survival horror of the undead…zombies!

Here are just a few of the awesome zombie tales available now at DriveThruHorror.com:

Dead Science – Coscom Entertainment
Book of All Flesh – Eden Studios
Down the Road – Permuted Press
Reign of the Dead – iUniverse
The Lifeless – Coscom Entertainment

All these and many more available now at DriveThruHorror.com!

For many years, I existed in a shadowy realm that bordered on true darkness: I lived the life of a non-gamer. This world of strategy, role-playing, plotting and power unfolded in my adult years when I started to date a gamer.

It was only natural that I would look to combine this newfound lifestyle with my other passion, editing. And while you might snigger about the editing, other obsessive-compulsive grammar serfs will understand.

A ROAD TO FREELANCING
How do people land a freelancing job inside the game industry? For me, the answer was a whole lot of luck and a decent amount of editing skill.

I have a degree in journalism and have spent about a decade editing professionally. I read grammar books compulsively when I’m not working on a project. Thus, I had enough confidence and experience to bolster my resolve to walk into new waters.

Publisher New Baby Productions announces that a graphic novel adaptation of Derek Gunn’s acclaimed Vampire Apocalypse novel series is in the works. “I’m really thrilled with this new direction as I always felt that (Vampire Apocalypse) really lends itself to this format,” stated Gunn. Vampire Apocalypse was published in September 2006, and has been optioned by producer/screenwriter Richard Finney to be a feature film. A script has already been penned by Finney and Franklin Guerrero Jr. Fallout, the third book in the series, will be released this October from Black Death Books.

When I went out to see one of this weekend’s newest box office’s offerings “9”, I knew a scarce few details about it. I knew from the trailers it was CG animated, it has robots covered in burlap bags, I knew it had something to do with a post-apocalyptic setting, I knew that the #1 fan of darkness and the macabre himself Tim Burton produced it and I knew it carried a PG-13 rating. With these details I was eager to see it, and to make sure I was covering more bases since I planned to review this flick, I brought along my fourteen year old daughter with me to get her thoughts and insights. I assumed the film might have been more aimed at an audience more her age level than my own. To a point I was right on in my assumption, but in others points I was way off.

Doing some homework after paying 9 a visit, I’ve since learned that it was based off of an 11 minute silent short from new director Shane Acker as his thesis project from his grad school days at UCLA. The short film gave the world a 3-D setting, by that I mean Dark, Desolate & Destroyed.

Review by Steven Dawes

Tired of your rights as a member of the living dead being violated? Sick of people putting you down or worse, screaming and trying to smash your head with a cricket bat? We don’t deserve to be treated like this! We will no longer stand for being viewed as lesser citizens. We need to fight for our rights and demand equal treatment.

The Coalition Of the Living Dead (COLD) will gather on Saturday October 24th at 2:00 pm at the state capitol in Madison, Wisconsin, and lurch for our rights as zombies. COLD encourages zombies and zombie supporters to come equipped with signs and slogans to make our point. We will raise our voices and we will not be ignored. We will lurch from the capitol down State Street to the Memorial Union.

Rough Magicks

A magic supplement for the best-selling and award winning Trail of Cthulhu, written by the master of Lovecraft Lore, Kenneth Hite.

The latest eldritch tome for Trail of Cthulhu unfolds the darkest secrets of Lovecraftian magic to the shuddering gaze of Keepers and Investigators alike! Read it … if you dare!

This book assembles the core of Lovecraftian magic from hints and allusions — and blasts all certainty aside with twelve contradictory explanations for it!

Rough Magicks is available at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop.

Let the buyer beware

Every freehold knows of at least one. Some seem to have grown up almost overnight, like a ring of small white mushrooms. Others seem to have run for millennia, outliving the rise and fall of the freeholds that surround them. They’ll never go away entirely, despite the dangers of their wares. Someone always needs something you can only get at a Goblin Market.

A chronicle book for Changeling: The Lost

Goblin Markets is available at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop.

I’ve not been privy to the works of Brian Keene before this past week, nor had I ever even heard of him. I’ve got plenty of reasons as to why Brian has flown under my radar, ranging from my recent urban fantasy kick (I’ve been on a mission to complete The Dresden Files and The Mercy Thompson series lately), making an earnest attempt at reading more of the books my friends ask me to read (recently wrapped up The Lovely Bones to discuss with a gal-pal of mine), to boning up on my ghost hunting & ghost story lore to finish up some of my freelance work for Palladium Books. For these reasons and others I’ve not read a horror novel in what feels like way too long.

But the other week I was hanging out with a buddy who had a copy of Urban Gothic chilling atop a box of books he calls his “finished and ready to trade in” box. Curiosity got to me and I glanced it over, catching various notes of praise like “Brian Keene is the next Stephan King”, “Post-apocalyptic… blunt and visceral” and “One of horror’s most impressive new literary talents.”

In a world where those with special powers are looked down upon and hunted, a secret team is brought together to protect it from the machinations of fallen angels and their children. From a noble cyborg warrior to a jumpy raver girl with electrical powers, they are brought in by a mysterious stranger and have to save a world that wouldn’t save them.

The graphic novel is a collection of short stories, introducing a reader to the universe of Alpha Gods. It is a world of magic and mutants, with sinister demons lurking in the shadows and with human beings developing strange powers. Called Extra Humans or Ex-Hus for short, the world knows they exist and has a largely negative view of them. The Alpha Gods try to protect the innocent ones while they struggle against a sinister corporation known as Grigori Enterprises that is performing experiments that will aid their demonic masters, the Nephilim.

Review by John D. Kennedy

Back by popular demand, Eden Studios presents all lovers of PDFs with an incredible sale on all of their amazing products!

All Flesh Must Be Eaten, Conspiracy X, Buffy: the Vampire Slayer, C.J. Carella’s Witchcraft, Army of Darkness and more!

Enjoy 50% to 75% Off Savings on all Eden Studios Electronic Games for a limited time!

The sale ends Thursday, September 3rd so take advantage of this awesome sale! Price has been automatically discounted off the original (or sale) price so you’ll enjoy huge discounts. If you’ve ever been interesting in conspiracies, paranormal threats, zombies, ghosts, witchcraft or the other things that lurk in the dark — now’s the perfect time to check out these great games.

Eden Studios RPGs are available at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop.

The Flash Fire Mini-Reviews series has crawled out of its grave and returned as a regular feature on the Flames Rising website.

To celebrate we’re going to be taking a look at several kinds of undead this week. We’ve got a mix of games, books and more. This particular edition of Flash Fire Mini-Reviews is going to feature a few different reviewers.

We’re going to take a look at Zombie Haiku, Vampire: the Eternal Struggle, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Geist: The Sin-Eaters and The Estuary.

A school full of kids.

A mysterious yellow rain.

High school will never be the same.

They are outcasts and misfits, teenagers lost on the path to adulthood, living day-to-day inside a high school culture of taunts, humiliation, and isolation. They are the misunderstood, the neglected, and the abused. They are . . . The Lifeless.

For them, every school day is a nightmare.

But on Monday, October 2nd, they will discover the true meaning of terror.

Classes are cut short by news of explosions in the city across the river, part of a series of horrific terrorist attacks that paralyze the nation. But that is only the beginning: amber clouds fill the sky, burning rain pelts down, and the surviving students of Verlaine High learn that their tormentors have mutated into something far worse-reanimated corpses with a primordial instinct for murder.

It’s time to stand up to the in-crowd . . . or be consumed by it.

The Lifeless: A Zombie Novel is available at DriveThruHorror.com.

Of Evil and Darkness follows a film crew to a mysterious island, where they are trying to find out more about the island and the mysterious murders that took place there long ago. The story starts off with humor, as even by issue two the story helps even a casual reader get adjusted to each character and their individual quirks. Upon arriving at the island, the crew is filled with a sense of nervousness from the stories about the island, and as the story progresses each character starts to become afraid. Soon they find that the stories about the island are very real, as they experience the events that took place many years ago, as a nightmare is resurrected on the island and it begins to hunt the crew down and murder them.

The film crew have unique personalities to them. From Henrick, the medium who travels with the cast and seems to foreshadow the evil events that are about to happen by his strange predictions, to the light-hearted nature of Jimmy as he tries to use humor to deal with the horror and anxiety around him.

Your mind is software. Program it.
Your body is a shell. Change it.
Death is a disease. Cure it.
Extinction is approaching. Fight it.

Eclipse Phase is a post-apocalyptic game of conspiracy and horror. Humanity is enhanced and improved, but also battered and bitterly divided. Technology allows the re-shaping of bodies and minds, but also creates opportunities for oppression and puts the capability for mass destruction in the hands of everyone. And other threats lurk in the devastated habitats of the Fall, dangers both familiar and alien. In this harsh setting, the players participate in a cross-faction conspiracy called Firewall that seeks to protect transhumanity from threats both internal and external. Along the way, they may find themselves hunting for prized technology in a gutted habitat falling from orbit, risking the hellish landscapes of a ruined earth, or following the trail of a terrorist through militarized stations and isolationist habitats. Players may even find themselves stepping through a Pandora Gate, a wormhole to distant stars and the alien secrets beyond.

The Eclipse Phase RPG is available at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop.

Rocky Joe Shields dives in to District 9 for Flames Rising.

Based on the short film Alive in Joburg, District 9 is more than just a mere science fiction summer action movie. Director Neill Blomkamp has created an exciting new world; the basis for this world is an alien-landing. Called “prawns,” the aliens landed 20 years ago over the South African city of Johannesburg. In District 9, we learn what has transpired over the next 20 years through interviews filmed in a documentary style. The people of Johannesburg have had enough, and want the aliens out of their city.

The movie begins with geeky bureaucrat Wikus van der Merwe, played wonderfully by newcomer Sharlto Copley, who has been assigned the task of getting the aliens to leave for District 10. Unfortunately, when Wikus comes into contact with an alien cylinder and sprays himself with the fluid inside, his DNA mutates, then turns him into one of the alien prawns.

Hello Flames Rising readers,

Below is a very important message from David Wong, author of the soon to be re-released John Dies at the End. Please read it carefully as your life may depend upon the information it contains…

—

My most terrifying experience reading a novel was when I opened my copy of White Fang and a dead spider fell out.

I’ve always felt like that’s what a good horror novel should do. That is what I told Jacob at Permuted Press when it came time to put John Dies at the End into print a couple of years ago. My idea was to rig each copy with a plastic spider that would jump out at the reader when they opened page 42. It was as simple as cutting a compartment into the middle pages and rigging some kind of spring mechanism.

Think you know all about vampires? Think again. Did you know that vampires can hibernate for decades, have stomachs the size of walnuts, and have a predisposition for jobs in real estate? Can you say, “I must feed?” in vampire language? A Practical Guide to Vampires (Mirrorstone) provides the in-depth information we all need to know about these dangerous creatures of the night. This comprehensive book follows the New York Times best-sellers A Practical Guide to Dragons and A Practical Guide to Monsters. All are lavishly-illustrated and fun for all ages.

A Practical Guide to Vampires is packed with thrilling, chilling and blood-spilling facts about these compelling monsters. Kids can read about vampire anatomy, intelligence, clothing, habits and habitats, as well as dangerous powers like shapeshifting, hypnotic persuasion, and superhuman strength.

As the sixth installment in George Romero’s zombie film series, Survival of the Dead offers a new storyline and (of course) more zombies. Debuting at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in mid-September, the film’s announcement has been met with mixed results. Some zombie lovers are groaning at the thought of another film in the series; others are interested in the story about a group of survivors who leave their island to find a cure and save humanity.

There are a number of stills from the movie that have recently been released through the TIFF website.

Official Survival of the Dead Movie Premiere at TIFF.net