Month: July 2025

“Bringing in the Creeps,” by Ray Van Horn, Jr. Has Been Awarded the Reader Views’ Five Star Review

/ Ray Van Horn, Jr. / 13 Comments

I am all fired up this morning! Bringing in the Creeps has been awarded a Five Star Review from Reader Views. Anytime your work gets mentioned in the same breath as the Master, Stephen King, is a “Squeeeee!” moment. Thank you with all my heart to Tammy Ruggles. Check it out:

“Bringing in the Creeps by Ray Van Horn, Jr., is the answer to a classic horror lover’s dream. If you miss the days of unabashed horror, then you will love this collection of short stories, which is a follow-up to his first anthology. Each story has something different and ghoulish to offer, so if you’re squeamish or not a horror fan, this isn’t the book for you.

Van Horn has an infectious love for horror, which you can tell as you read. He has his finger on the pulse of what makes horror tick. The topic of murder is just the beginning. The characters and plots are unique and compelling in a delightfully horrific way, but all faithfully horror. By now, the undead in horror has been done to death, but Van Horn gives zombies new life, pun intended. The 1980s vibe of the arcade takes you back to all those B and C horror slasher movies on VHS.

I like the style of Van Horn’s writing–to the point and horror-focused, and I like how he uses interesting settings, like a punk rock show, a reservoir, and an old arcade, just to name a few. Van Horn never lets you forget what horror used to be, and still is today, in the right hands. These are more than throw-back stories. They are true entertainment for horror fans longing to sink their teeth into the meat and potatoes of classic horror. With writers like Van Horn, werewolves, monsters, and the macabre will never go out of style. Now horror fans will have another name to turn to when they want a good scare or gross-out. This collection proves that there is more to horror than haunted houses and possessed children.

The cover alone pulls you in, but once you’re inside the stories, you discover a writer who truly is talented and committed to telling these tried-and-true tales of terror. One of my favorite stories is the first one, “‘End of the Midway,” simply because it introduces you to the quality of writing to come. The writer takes something as familiar and everyday as a midway and gradually but graphically shows you the horror inside it.

The dialogue between the characters can sound almost boring and too everyday, but that’s intentional, as it helps ground you in the real world. There is something oddly lyrical and poetic in the phrasing Van Horn uses, and that may surprise you if you think there can’t be rhythm in horror writing. Van Horn, like Stephen King, writes with a certain ebb and flow that sometimes feels like a nursery rhyme, but with teeth. The vivid imagery puts you right into the time and place he’s writing about, and the characters are fleshed out, though some more well-drawn than others. “Age of Quarrel,” the one about xenophobia and a persecuted teen, is another of my favorites.

Whether you’re a casual horror fan or one who just can’t get enough, Bringing in the Creeps by Ray Van Horn, Jr., won’t disappoint.”

Bringing in the Creeps, from Anuci Press. Now available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble.com and numerous online retail outlets!

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

Shore Leave 2025

/ Ray Van Horn, Jr. / 5 Comments

What an incredible Shore Leave 45 hanging with friends, making new, immediate bonds, sharing stories, ideas and laughs with plenty of shenanigans. The long-running Star Trek, Star Wars and science fiction convention now held at the Wyndham Hotel in Lancaster, Pennsylvania was a total blast with our table neighbors all around us including the hilarious horror and fantasy Novel Guys table (thanks to Christina for keeping me company in line for the complimentary autographs from Starship Troopers’ Casper Van Dien and Dina Meyer) and chatting with Star Trek: Prodigy’s Bonnie Gordon, a total sweetheart and renegade of the con trenches.

We’re grateful the time spent and knowledge gained from all the famed Star Trek, sci-fi, fantasy and mystery writers whom TJ and I are fortunate to call friends. We’re especially thankful to the bookstores we met who agreed to carry both of our books and anyone inadvertently missed. TJ rocked her panels, and I’m pleased to learn I will be a part of Shore Leave’s future panel programming. Also thank you to the vendor passing out free Godzilla 70th anniversary posters courtesy of IDW. Also, mad fun at the Godzilla panel geeking out with tons of King Green contributions from me and many others.

As you can see, the cosplayers came to play!

Art by Star Trek comic artist, JK Woodward

Art by Star Trek comic artist, JK Woodward

–Photos by Ray Van Horn, Jr. and TJ Perkins

Because He’s Just Super, Man

/ Ray Van Horn, Jr. / 3 Comments

In honor of James Gunn’s reboot of the adventures of the Man of Steel, Superman, released this week.

We have our tickets for next week and we’re not affected by the obnoxious teeing off of this being a “woke” Superman movie. Superman has always been a story of an immigrant coming to America, all the way back to the World War II days. Created by Jewish immigrants, Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel, Superman’s purpose in American culture has always been to raise the country’s morale along with the stakes of its own purpose and evolution. Superman is the best of us, the American dream splashed across a blue and red scheme uniform. Only Captain America serves as a better emblem of an earthbound, flag-waving superpatriot.

Yet Superman is the OG flag-waving superpatriot for the comics, t.v. and movies, helmed upon the heroic shoulders of Kirk Alyn (1948-1950 Superman serials actor) and the iconic George Reeves and Christopher Reeve, most especially.

So just let it be. Let Superman be who he’s meant to be, serving as a symbol of hope to his adopted land, not just the United States but Planet Earth itself. A stranger in a strange land from an entire cosmos away, orphaned through destruction. Despite this trauma and bearing the responsibility of keeping unearthly power in check for good, Superman heaps the entire world’s stress, plights and potential devastations upon his square, brawny posture.

Superman doesn’t know “woke.” Superman doesn’t have time to be “woke.” Superman always was, not just for the white privileged and middle-class male. He’s for everyone, of all races, religions, sexes and sexual preferences. He is the emblem of perpetual hope for all generations, no matter your walk of life. I’ve read Superman comics most of my life and can prove my point if you have the time and wherewithal to prove there is no stupid “woke.” Superman could own us all, but he chooses the righteous path. Sorry, Dean Cain, former Kal-El, with all due respect as one of the better Superman actors.

So let’s go, James Gunn and David Corenswet. There’s been way too much drama already for what is just a frigging popcorn superhero film going back to its roots instead of dwelling in the butt ugly miasma of the Zack Snyder era. There’s just Superman. Period.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

Barr Smith Library at the University of Adelaide, Australia

/ Ray Van Horn, Jr. / 11 Comments

I love me a grand looking library, and here’s one as grand as it gets. Barr Smith Library at the University of Adelaide, Australia.

Can’t you just imagine Burgess Meredith’s bookworm savant from the classic Twilight Zone episode “Time Enough at Last’s” Henry Bemis getting purposefully shut inside this paradise of pulp? I’d probably be right there with him. Reminding him to keep his glasses ever close at all times.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

Retro Ad of the Week: Black Sabbath, Live at the Asbury Park Convention Hall, NJ 1972

/ Ray Van Horn, Jr. / 10 Comments

This is in honor of yesterday’s Black Sabbath farewell extravaganza at Villa Park, Birmingham, England, appropriately titled, “Back to the Beginning.” 40,000 metal strong came out to say goodbye to the founding fathers of the genre, united one last time with the original lineup of Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, Bill Ward and Ozzy Osbourne.

It was an all-day festival which featured Sabbath and Ozzy solo material homages by Metallica, Guns n’ Roses, Slayer, Mastodon, Lamb of God, Pantera, Tool, Alice in Chains, Gojira and others. Not to mention twenty supergroup sections spanning royalty from the metal and hard rock leagues such as Steven Tyler, Sammy Hagar, Lzzy Hale, Tom Morello, Dave Ellefson, Mike Bordin, Extreme’s Nuno Bettencourt, The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith, The Rolling Stones’ Ron Wood, Living Colour’s Vernon Reid, Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan, Anthrax’s Scott Ian and Frank Bello, Disturbed’s Dave Draiman, former Ozzy Osbourne band guitarist Jake E. Lee and many others. Also, a pre-recorded rendition of Ozzy’s dirge classic, “Mr. Crowley,” led by School of Rock headmaster, Jack Black.

This morning, I’m heavy sighing all over the place as I scroll through my social media accounts and finding countless photos and videos of fans and metal icons attending “Back to the Beginning.” I’m jealous AF, but also incredibly happy for everyone who made the trek for this momentous valediction. Of Black Sabbath’s entire rollcall of members, I got to interview Bill Ward, Ronnie James Dio, Glenn Hughes, Vinny Appice, Bobby Rondinelli and session drummer, Tommy Clufetos. Not too shabby.

This sense of finality feels genuine for once, unlike other so-called “farewell” tours of legacy bands that were anything but. Yes, Black Sabbath dropped The End: Live in Birmingham, a 2017 concert document of the final show from a long stretch with the Ozzman back at the helm. Yet this event, “Back to the Beginning,” carries a sense of purpose to close the book on Sabbath’s teeming psalms of boom and let it rest while the foundation is still alive to savor the moment.

Like everyone else in the metal community, this week I’ve spent time spinning the Sabbath catalog. In deference more so than a sense of loss, as I hear some people referring to this moment, as if we’re mourning instead of celebrating. As if. From Sabbath’s iconic Ozzy days (inclusive of 2013’s revival album 13), I found myself spinning Sabotage, Master of Reality and Vol. 4, my favorite albums from that era, before inevitably dipping to the Dio era (which I have tremendous affection for) and a run through Mob Rules and Heaven and Hell. In my story, “Meteor Shit” from my just-released horror collection Bringing in the Creeps, my lead character, Kevin, is a chastised middle schooler with a love of Stephen King and Black Sabbath. I concentrated on the Dio era in that story in keeping true to its 1982 setting, when we kids could never project this pivotal curtain call in 2025.

Would that the late Ronnie James Dio could’ve made it to this moment in time to share the stage with Ozzy, who sang from a black throne onstage. Ozzy claims this show is his final live performance, period, due to his ongoing battle with Parkinson’s disease. Dio and the core of his tenure in Sabbath at least had their own glory ride moment as the rebranded Heaven and Hell before Dio succumbed to stomach cancer.

Yet I can only imagine the titanic feeling in Birmingham from the metal community last night when the original foursome splintered the air one last time. I’m seeing and reading pictures of tears being shed, a cavalcade of horns-up salutes, a pair of superfans hopping the gate and getting selfies at Mapledurham Watermill, the location of Black Sabbath’s self-titled debut album. Plus none other than Jason Mamoa wishing his friend Phil Anselmo of Pantera well at the stage before leaping over the iron barrier and swimming his way through the throng into the mosh pit. An immediate all-time metal moment.

Farewell, Iommi, Butler, Ward and Osbourne, there’s nothing left to prove. Supernaut lords of this world and the next.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.