Brian Keene Archives - Page 2 of 5 - Cemetery Dance Online

Brian Keene’s History of Horror Fiction, Chapter Three: The Kaiju Invasion and Zombie Apocalypse of 2100 B.C.

Cemetery Dance OnlineDecember 29, 2017December 27, 2017Brian Keene's History of Horror FictionBrian Keene, History of Horror Fiction, kaiju, zombie4 Comments

Before we talk about The Epic of Gilgamesh, I want to touch on folklore, myths, and religion. As stated previously, my goal with this column is to present a history of horror fiction from primitive man up to today’s Kindle revolution. In doing that, I will undoubtedly anger some people. (Indeed, judging by the recent histrionics of the addled S.T. Joshi, I already have.) But while I’m happy to piss people off by claiming there’s common ground between quiet horror and splatterpunk, or discussing the possibility that America’s oldest mass market paperback publisher was partially funded by organized crime, it is not my intent to anger or offend anyone by disparaging their personal religious beliefs.Continue Reading

Brian Keene’s History of Horror Fiction, Chapter Two: Thurg Life

Cemetery Dance OnlineNovember 30, 2017January 4, 2018Brian Keene's History of Horror FictionBrian Keene, Columns, History of Horror Fiction5 Comments

In the opening sentence of his seminal 1927 essay Supernatural Horror in Literature, H.P. Lovecraft wrote, “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear.”

Decades later, in the Introduction to 1982’s Prime Evil anthology, Douglas E. Winter wrote, “Horror is not a genre, like the mystery or science fiction or the western. It is not a kind of fiction, meant to be confined to the ghetto of a special shelf in libraries or bookstores. Horror is an emotion.”

In his posthumously released 1993 song “Thug Life,” 2Pac (Tupac Shakur) rapped, “Thinkin’ of dead niggas that I knew that died young. Is there a heaven for a nigga up to no good, or is it another fuckin’ hood?”

Three seemingly disparate quotes, connected only tenuously, and yet all speaking to one universal truth that is as old as humankind itself. Three quotes that serve to interpolate the work of the Upper Paleolithic era’s version of Stephen King—an artist known as Thurg.Continue Reading

Brian Keene’s History of Horror Fiction: Chapter One: Not the Man for the Job

Cemetery Dance OnlineOctober 31, 2017November 1, 2017Brian Keene's History of Horror FictionBrian Keene, Columns, History of Horror Fiction21 Comments

Hi. My name is Brian Keene. You might remember me from my previous Cemetery Dance column, End of the Road. Or perhaps you know me from the many novels and comic books and short stories I’ve written—too many, if you ask some critics. Or maybe you know me from my popular podcast, The Horror Show with Brian Keene. Or, it’s possible you don’t know me at all—or know me only by reputation (and if it’s the latter, then don’t believe everything you read online). Regardless of how you ended up here, welcome to History of Horror Fiction, a new monthly column brought to you by Cemetery Dance.Continue Reading

Save the Date for a Special Event from Brian Keene and Cemetery Dance!

Cemetery Dance OnlineOctober 19, 2017October 18, 2017Breaking NewsBrian KeeneLeave a comment

Epilogue, Part Two

Cemetery Dance OnlineMarch 3, 2017March 2, 2017Brian Keene's End of the RoadBrian Keene, Columns, End of the RoadLeave a comment

Twenty Years Ago

Now

Tomorrow

Twenty Years From Now

Eventually, the road leads you here. Continue Reading

Epilogue, Part One

Cemetery Dance OnlineFebruary 24, 2017February 22, 2017Brian Keene's End of the RoadBrian Keene, Columns, End of the Road1 Comment

November 16, 2016

Brian and his oldest son have spent a week in Seattle. His oldest son, now twenty-five, is a social worker by day, and a budding rock guitarist by night. He is a fan of Alice In Chains, Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Mother Love Bone, and the rest of the grunge-era music (which is now considered classic rock—something that makes Brian feel that full weight of fifty that he knows will be drawing down on him next year). Given this, Seattle makes sense for what will be their first father and son vacation since the now-young-man was ten years old.Continue Reading

Full Circle

Cemetery Dance OnlineFebruary 17, 2017February 16, 2017Brian Keene's End of the RoadBrian Keene, Columns, End of the Road5 Comments

The second to last weekend of October, I made my way up north again, this time for the Merrimack Valley Halloween Book Festival in Haverhill, Massachusetts—a mass-signing event organized by Christopher Golden and involving about twenty or thirty horror authors. Podcast co-host Dave Thomas accompanied me for this part of the tour, and we stayed at the home of author James A. Moore.Continue Reading

Home Movies

Cemetery Dance OnlineFebruary 10, 2017February 10, 2017Brian Keene's End of the RoadBrian Keene, Columns, End of the Road1 Comment

Mary SanGiovanni and I have a ritual when we curl up on the couch at nine o’clock in the evening and watch television together. I always pick the first movie, and she always picks the second. We do this because I am always ready for bed by eleven at night, and Mary often stays up until one or two in the morning—and also because she likes to pick the worst horror movies you’ve ever seen. Continue Reading

That Guy

Cemetery Dance OnlineFebruary 3, 2017February 2, 2017Brian Keene's End of the RoadBrian Keene, Columns, End of the Road1 Comment

In early October, Mary and I climbed into the Jeep and drove from Pennsylvania to Louisville, Kentucky, where we were both guests at a fairly new convention called Imaginarium. The organizers put on an excellent event. It is geared primarily towards writers, and it encompasses all genres. I highly recommend investing the money and traveling to the next Imaginarium, particularly if you are a beginning author. There were some fantastic, informative panels, and some wonderful networking opportunities.Continue Reading

The Beginning of the End

Cemetery Dance OnlineJanuary 20, 2017January 18, 2017Brian Keene's End of the RoadBrian Keene, Columns, End of the Road1 Comment

“It’s a fun job, but it’s still a job. Save your money, man. A hit single don’t last very long. There’s gonna be another cat coming out, looking like me, sounding like me, next year. I know this.” – Cypress Hill, ‘Rock Superstar’

“Right when you get good, they replace you. Best thing that ever happened to me.” – Marc MaronContinue Reading

Go Indie or Go Home

Cemetery Dance OnlineJanuary 13, 2017January 12, 2017Brian Keene's End of the RoadBrian Keene, Columns, End of the Road1 Comment

The third leg of the Farewell (But Not Really) Tour started off locally, at The Comic Store—an independently-owned comic book store in Lancaster, Pennsylvania (where I was joined by Mary SanGiovanni). From there, it moved on to a pop-up signing in New Jersey, independently-owned bookstores in Rhode Island (where scholar Jack Haringa led a Q&A), and Vermont (where I was joined by Asher Ellis), before eventually circling back home again for a signing at a corporate-owned Books-a-Million chain store in Harrisburg.Continue Reading

Keene’s Eleven

Cemetery Dance OnlineJanuary 6, 2017January 6, 2017Brian Keene's End of the RoadBrian Keene, Columns, End of the RoadLeave a comment

There was a long moment of stunned silence.

Then Dave asked, “Are you insane?”

“No,” I replied, suddenly feeling very foolish. “I mean, Mary experienced it, too.”

“I felt something in the bookstore that day,” she confirmed, “but I don’t know what I think about the rest of this.”

“Oh, I’ve no doubt you guys experienced something,” Dave said. “I’ve had my own encounters with the paranormal over the years. And who knows? Maybe you did make brief contact with Jesus. It’s possible.”

I frowned. “Then why do you think I’m insane?”

“Because you’re not talking about seeing his ghost. You’re talking about stealing his corpse!”Continue Reading

The Year That Roared

Cemetery Dance OnlineDecember 30, 2016December 30, 2016Brian Keene's End of the RoadBrian Keene, Columns, End of the Road, The Year That Roared1 Comment

“It’s hard to love, there’s so much to hate
Hanging on to hope, when there is no hope to speak of
And the wounded skies above, say it’s much too late
So, maybe we should all be praying for time…”

George Michael – ‘Praying For Time’

The Dark Highway

Cemetery Dance OnlineDecember 16, 2016December 14, 2016Brian Keene's End of the RoadBrian Keene, Columns, End of the RoadLeave a comment

“Everybody thought it was a big joke… It was so funny, I just kept on going…Everybody thought I was just going to go on tweaking the Major’s balls to the very end. Which was what I did. Then one morning I woke up and I was in. I was a Prime Walker…So I guess it turned out the Major was tweaking my balls.” Stephen King, The Long Walk

Continue Reading

God and Country

Cemetery Dance OnlineDecember 9, 2016December 7, 2016Brian Keene's End of the RoadBrian Keene, Columns, End of the Road3 Comments

End of the Road

The audience in Morgantown, West Virginia was small—easily the smallest since Albuquerque—but the dozen or so people who showed up were enthusiastic and engaged. One guy, Jarod Barbee, had traveled all the way from Texas. It is December as I write this, recounting events that occurred at the end of July, and I’ve been going back through these columns, collecting them into manuscript format so Cemetery Dance can eventually publish them as a book. Many recurring things jump out at me as I re-read them. Continue Reading

FREE email updates!

Categories