A Papier Mâché Poe?

My daughter recently brought home from school a scary Papier Mâché Edgar Allan Poe she made in art class. The sculpture is complete with a beating heart on the floor and a gold bug crawling up Poe's leg! Maybe I've been talking a little too much about Poe while writing Coffee with Poe and editing Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Annotated Works. But then again, a kid cannot go wrong with Poe.

What was the First Vampire Story Set in Venice?

It is common for the setting of modern vampire stories and movies to be placed in the haunting city of Venice, Italy. With its Gothic palaces and watery landscape, Venice is perfect for those who wake at night and seek their prey. In 1836, however, only a handful of vampire stories had ever been written. That's when the popular French author Theophile Gautier wrote "Clarimonde" and published it in the French magazine La Morte Amoureuse. The tale is undeniable as one of the first vampire short stories and it was included in BlooDeath: The Best Vampire Stories 1800-1849.

30% Off My Books This Weekend at Amazon and Barnes & Noble

Those of you procrastinators who have been holding off on buying my books until a good deal comes around are in luck. Get 30% off any of my books at either Amazon or Barnes & Noble through Sunday, December 1st. The coupons are good online so you won't even have to fight the holiday crowds to bag the discount.

At Amazon use coupon code: BOOKDEAL

At BN.com use coupon code: BFRIDAY30

Answering Questions on The Divine Dantes This week

The nice folks over at the New Adult group on Goodreads are hosting a Q&A with me all week about my latest novel The Divine Dantes: Squirt Guns in Hades (Infernal Trilogy #1). You can ask questions here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1582616-q-a-with-andrew-barger-open-for-new-questions

What is The Divine Dantes trilogy?

If "The Divine Comedy" and "Catcher in the Rye" met on a smoky lawn at a rock concert, "The Divine Dantes: Squirt Guns in Hades" would be the outcome.

Reviews: “. . . a lively and good-natured work with a great deal of humor and wordplay . . ..”

—Publisher’s Weekly Reviewer

“ . . . reminds me a little of the fun I find in Carl Hiaasen or Christopher Moore, but he definitely has his own vibe . . . .” —Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Expert Reviewer

This New Adult novel is the first in a trilogy of laugh-out-loud books paralleling Dante Alighieri's classic poem, "The Divine Comedy," where the characters of The Inferno are encountered in modern times with surprising results. At the center is Eddie, a young rocker who is heartbroken after his girlfriend, Beatrice, leaves for Venice. This not only ends their relationship, but also the world's greatest two-person rock band. At Beatrice's request, Virgil-their erstwhile manager-cum-travel-agent guides Eddie to Europe to meet her without Eddie being in on the secret.

Will Eddie want to see Beatrice? Will the band get back together? And if it does, can Eddie settle on a name for it?

Asteroid with Comet-Like Tales and the First Comet Science Fiction Short Story in the English Language

The Hubbel telescope has recently spotted a strange asteroid with six comet-like tales. Whenever I hear interesting scientific news like this I always want to know if (and when) science fiction authors first wrote about such an event.

Turns out in 1835, Sir Thomas Charles Morgan (1783-1843)--husband of the popular novelist Lady Morgan--came pretty close. He wrote the first science fiction short story where the protagonist rides on a comet that he controls by a "filial or two" of concentrated gravity. The tale is called "Glimpses of Other Worlds" and you can find it my recently published anthology - Mesaerion: The Best Science Fiction Stories 1800-1849.

WHO WAS THE FIRST AMERICAN TO WRITE A VAMPIRE SHORT STORY?

There has been much discussion about John Polidori, the young Italian doctor that travelled with Lord Byron and who wrote the first vampire short story in the English language. Polidori titled it "The Vampyre" and the story was published in 1819.

But who was the first American to write a vampire short story? That honor belongs to Robert Charles Sands, a lawyer and poet. His excellent story was titled "The Black Vampyre: A Legend of Saint Domingo" and it was published only a few months after Polidori's vampire story in 1819. "The Black Vampyre" is difficult to find. I spent time at UC San Diego spooling through microfiche and then copying the individual pages, which then had to be scanned into a computer. I included it in the award-winning BlooDeath: The Best Vampire Stories 1800-1849, along with a lengthy introduction about Sands and the interesting bond that joins these earliest vampire stories in the English language.

Balloon Trip to the Moon - Only 193 Years in the Making

For only $75,000 balloon trips to the moon are being offered. Will it actually work? Check out this video. Technology has finally caught up to a science fiction writer who described of these types of trips in 1820.

Years before Edgar Allan Poe' popular "[Balloon Hoax]" tale, another was published that not only sent the first earthling to the moon in a balloon, but when he arrives, he meets the first lunarian whose name was Zuloc.

What was the name of the first sci-fi short story of a trip to the moon in a balloon and who wrote it? You can find the story and my thoughts on who the author was in Mesaerion: The Best Science Fiction Stories 1800-1849.  

My Classic Vampire Anthology is a Finalist in the International Book Awards

BlooDeath: The Best Vampire Stories 1800-1849, has been selected as a finalist award-winner in the anthology category of the International Book Awards. Pretty cool. So what's in the book?

The collection unleashes the greatest early vampire tales in the English language. Unearthed from long forgotten journals and magazines, I uncovered the very best vampire short stories from the first half of the 19th century. They are collected for the first time in this groundbreaking book on the origins of vampire lore.

The cradle of all vampire short stories in the English language is the first half of the 19th century. I combed forgotten journals and mysterious texts to collect the very best vintage vampire stories from this crucial period in vampire literature. In doing so, I unearthed the second and third vampire stories originally published in the English language, neither printed since their first publication nearly 200 years ago. Also included is the first vampire story originally written in English by John Polidori after a dare with Lord Byron and Mary Shelley. The book contains the first vampire story by an American who was a graduate of Columbia Law School. The book further includes the first vampire stories by an Englishman and German, including the only vampire stories by such renowned authors as Alexander Dumas, Théophile Gautier and Joseph le Fanu.

I added my scholarly touch to this collection by including story backgrounds, annotations (physical book), author photos and a foreword titled "With Teeth." The ground-breaking stories are:

1819 The Vampyre - John Polidori (1795-1821)
1823 Wake Not the Dead - Ernst Raupach (1784-1852)
1848 The Vampire of the Carpathian Mountains - Alexander Dumas (1802-1870)
1839 Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter - Joseph le Fanu (1814-1873)
1826 Pepopukin in Corsica - Arthur Young (1741-1820)
1819 The Black Vampyre: A Legend of Saint Domingo - Robert C. Sands (1799-1832)
1836 Clarimonde - Théophile Gautier (1811-1872)

Who was the First Woman to Write a Werewolf Short Story?

Who was the first female to write a werewolf short story in the English language? In researching my anthology Shifters: The Best Werewolf Short Stories 1800-1849 I uncovered a tale by Catherine Crowe (1790-1872). She called it "A Story of a Weir-Wolf" and published it in 1846. Despite the rather boring title, its a fine lycan tale. At first she appears to be the first woman to write a werewolf story in the English language, but them I remembered that "Hugues the Wer-Wolf: A Kentish Legend of the Middle Ages" was attributed to Sutherland Menzies (1806-1883). That tale was published eight years before Crowe's story. There are some who believe Menzies was a pen-name for Mrs. Elizabeth Stone. If so, she was the first woman to pen a lycan story.

Came Back Haunted is Classic NIN Flash Fiction

"Came Back Haunted," the new single by NIN, gets my vote as one of the best song titles to come around in a very long time. Much more than just a song title, though, it's flash fiction. Those three little words conjure three hundred ghost stories in this spectral month of October. "Need more coffins," is one I thought of...