@@DESCRIPT="+ The Death Certificate +" _______________ / /| \ /| SoulZ at Zer0 | / /| \ \ /-| / | | 04-95 SaZ Pak | \ /-| / // | \ | +---------------+ // | \ |/_______________/ -----THE-DEATH-CERTIFICATE------VOLUME-1-ISSUE-6---------APRIL--1995------ Staff: The Stranger, Jack Flack - Editors, Writers. Black Sunshine - Writer. (*) If you are interested in contributing to The Death Certificate please let one of the editors know. (*) Editors Editorials are now located seperately within the pack. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mouths agape, screams curdling in their throats, their faces bleached white in stark terror, their eyes impossibly wide...the darkness had swallowed his daughter and most of his wife in a single lunge from its murky home, their screams to forever remain unscreamed... "Face of Darkness" Douglas Doelling --------------------------------------------------------------------------- + Table of Contents + SAZ News Letters to the Editors Horror News Voices From The Grave (New Column) Reviews The Writers Block Eulogies Final Words ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Soulz At Zero News New writers are here! This month we almost double in size with all the new writers. We welcome Maelstrom, Aragorn, Terminal Velocity (from New Jersey!), and we also welcome a guest writer, DeadGuy. Thanks for offering your talents to us guys, we appreciate it and look forward to your work in the future. And I would just like to mention some of the SAZ sites we have out there that I wasn't able to mention last month. We welcome Disembodied Voices as our NorthEast HQ in New York and El Motel de Tres Horas in Texas as our South HQ. Also, The Death Star and Full Metal Jacket both from Conneticut (sp?). And we are really excited about our new Canadian HQ, The Black River. Thanks to all the sysops for letting us take up room on their harddrives and for supporting us. We have decided to no longer put editorials in the Death Certificate because sometimes we have important stuff to talk about and we realize that not every one takes the time to read the Death Certificate so we are doing more of the old readme type file thing. But for those of you who enjoy reading the Death Certificate, I am trying to add new things to it and hopefully we will have new words of non-fiction every month. We are also working on interviews and other strange things. So in this months Death Certificate I'm starting a new column called "Voices From the Grave" which is just me talking about horror in general, sortof like my old editorial but hopefully more about a certain subject. And one thing. Black Sunshine would like me to mention that she has promised not to write any more "Biblical apocolypse" poems anymore. But I (the stranger) am thinking of only writing biblical apocolpyse poems from now on to make up for her leaving that wonderful theme. Nah, I'll probably stay with my "killing children" theme. We shall see. If you have any suggestions or comments for SAZ just call my board, log on as SAZ and the password is SAZ and let us know. We really do appreciate any comments. Thats all the news for this month. Have a great April and we will see you again in May. The Stranger... ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Harry, eyes closed, felt sick and dizzy. "He has to be stopped," he murmured. "I have to stop him. But I can't do it alone." "You won't be alone, Harry," said the shade of Keenan Gormley. "All of the world's dead will be with you." "Necroscope" by Brian Lumley -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Letters to the Editors We had a lot of comments over the past couple of months so we'd like to share some of them and answer any questions that might have been asked. First, I think the most comments I received were about our new viewer. I expected that. Mr. Spock did a great job with it and Yaun-Ti made some amazing graphics for it. Just about all the comments said the same thing, everyone loved it, and though they loved the music, they found it annoying when they tried to read the poems and they'd hear that voice saying "necrophiliac". Well the problem is solved. Just type SAZVIEW /SILENT and that will allow you to run it without sound. Though personally I love listening to the music. From Shadowolfe: "I realize that the packs are doing really well, especially lately, getting downloaded all over the country and everything. I only have one question: why, then, don't you have more writers? All the writers are really talented, but seeing so much from the same ones every time gets old because each writer has their little subconscious things they do in every work that makes them all kind of run together." Well thats pretty much the same thing we've been wondering. We are now in like 9 different states and even Canada and so we expect to see some more new writers coming in quickly. But hey, we just added like 3 this month and we are looking at atleast 2 more people for next month already. So just keep watching us, we are growing all the time. From Prince Kheldar: "I liked the Cinderella reviews you guys did. You were right about what you said about that era of music. I laughed while I was reading that." Glad you liked them. We really enjoyed writing them and if we see anymore concerts together we might right another review just for you. :) So thanks for the comment, we appreciate it. Thats all for this month. Thanks for your comments and questions. If you have anything to say to us just find a member of SAZ and scream at us. We'd really love to hear from you. Thanks. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Horror News by The Stranger: New in Bookstores: One of my personal favorite authors, T.M. Wright, who just re-released one of his books called "Goodlow's Ghost" now brings us his newest hardback release entitled "The Ascending." The book is about murders and psychics. A police officer and a psychic work together to try and solve the murders that have been haunting Toronto for months. Any book by T.M. Wright is amazing, so if you get the chance check this book out. "Voices in the Night" is a new $65 anthology with many good short story writers including R.C. Matheson, Elizabeth Massie, William F. Nolan, and Janet Fox. "The Earth Strikes Back" is another new anthology that was edited by Richard Chizmar who is the editor of Cemetary Dance Magazine. This anthology is priced at $12.95 and its calling itself stories of ecological horror, so stories that involve the enviroment. Most of the big short story writers are here, Dan Simmons, Poppy Z. Brite, Richard Laymon, Ed Gorman, Rick Hautala, and Nancy Collins to name a few. This is probably a good one so see if you can find it. David Drake, who is really Ron Dee, releases "HorrorShow". If you know the writing of Ron Dee then you know what this book is about without me telling you. It's amout sex and gore and lots of it. Kim Elizabeth, who is nicknamed "The Princess of Horror" releases something pretty strange this month. It's called "Netherworld" and what it is is a "horror poetry comic" from what I understand. So its a collection of her poety and short stories, written around pictures and put in a comic book form. From reading some of Kim's poems, this should be a very interesting project and one worth looking for. And she is incredible looking, by the way. By far the most exciting thing coming out this month is also the most expensive thing coming out. "Strange Highways" is Dean Koontz first ever short story collection and atleast for right now it will only be out in a limited signed edition at $150 a piece. This is an amazing book produced by CD (or Cemetary Dance) publications and includes a brand new short novel entitled "Strange Highways," and also one of Koontz first novels entitled "Chase" which is really hard to find. Plus the collection contains 12 short stories, most of which have been revised for this edition. 10 pages of author notes and 14 illustrations inside are also included. If you have the money get this, if you don't, then hope that a cheaper version comes out around summer. Mark A. Clements new novel is called "Lorelei" and right now its only avaiable as an expensive hardback. Wait for the paperback. Ron Faust releases "When She Was Bad" this month in paperback. Charles Grant releases "Black Carousel," and he is one of my three favorites. Check out any book by Grant. "Graythings" is a new paperback from Pat Graversen. "Joyride" is the new novel from Jack Ketchum which is getting good reviews and has a good blurb by Stephen King on the cover. It's a $5 paperback thats worth checking out. If you love Brian Lumley you'll be happy to know that all of his Necroscope books are being re-released in beautiful hardbacks that have actually been slightly revised by the author. The 7th and final book of the series, "Bloodwars" has also just been released. The legend himself, Richard Matheson releases a new hardback called "Now You See It" which is about magic and murder. He's the best. Michael O'Rourke is getting good reviews about his new paperback, "The Bad Thing." Pretty much a book about a serial killer. Brian Stableford who got rave reviews about his last novel now brings us "Carnival of Destruction." New at the movies: Out in your theatres now is Stephen King's "Dolores Claiborne" starring Kathy Bates and Jennifer Jason Leigh. The book was horrible but the clips for the movie look really good. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Column: Voices From the Grave By The Stranger I wanted to have a place where I could talk to you horror fans out there about whats going on in the horror world. Where I could focus more on the world of horror and still be able to ramble. So here it is. If you read a lot of horror fiction and especially anthologies then the name Dennis Etchison should sound familiar. For the longest time he has been thought of as the best underground writer in horror. And by underground I just mean he wasn't well known and didn't have many best- selling novels. He is most known for his short stories which have appeared in every quality horror magazine and in some of his own collections such as "The Bloodkiss", "Red Dreams", and "The Dark Country." He also wrote a book called "Darkside" a while back and he also wrote the novelization for a movie called "The Fog." Well a couple of years back he got his big chance when the Del Abyss line published his novel "Shadowman" which went on to be one of the best- sellers for that company. And ever since, I have been dying for a new novel by him. Well for about 6 months or so, the word was out that Abyss had bought the rights to his next novel and that it would be out sometime in 1995. Titled "California Gothic," the book was getting plenty of talk in the horror magazines but no one knew what it was about. Well my friends, I was able to get a small press release of the book. The book is scheduled for June of this year and will be priced at $4.99 here in America. In my press release I have the full cover of the book plus the prologue and the entire first chapter. Well the cover looks somewhat cheesy and the idea of the book as it turns out is about a dead woman coming back from the grave. For those of you who know Etchison's writing, he's changed a little. Whereas before he was quick to the punch, now he sets things up first and then slams it down your throat. His writing, which was already the best, seems to have improved. This book, from what I've read, has a very strange, mysterious feel to it. So now I'm even more excited about the book but we will have to wait till June. And speaking of June, Stephen King's new novel "Rose Madder" is also scheduled to be released in June. I am working on and should be able to get a copy of the book before it comes out and though I may not be able to read it, I will let you know what its about. People who have read it say its his best book since "The Stand" but then again these are people who are close to the King camp. "The Langoliers" comes to ABC television in May of 1995 and my sources tell me its really good though the cast is really awful (Bronson "Balki" Pinchot for example!) Well thats all I wanted to tell you about this month. Hopefully I'll see you here again next month and we can talk about the world of horror. The Stranger... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Reviews: Books: "Methods of Madness" By Ray Garton, pub. 1990, Dark Harvest. Ray Garton has suddenly become one of my favorite writers.. I reviewed a book by him last month called "Live Girls" and I loved it so much I went out and bought another book by him. This one is a collection of 5 short stories and 1 short novel. It cost $20 but it is one of the best books I've read in a long time. Ray Garton writes about two subjects, sex and religion. Usually he uses them together but in this collection we see very little religious overtones but we do see tons of sex. The first story in the collection is entitled "Fat" and its about a young high school kid who has always been fat. He can't get the girls because girls don't go for fat guys. So because he wants the girls to notice him he decides to lose weight. And he does. He loses lots of weight. The bad thing is, the weight wants him back. The second story is entitled "Active Members" and this one is a sortof funny one with a good surprise at the end. The problem for our main character is he has a big penis. What? That's not a problem? Well the thing is it keeps growing, and growing, until soon it has a life of its own. The third story is called "Something Kinky" and its about a man who just is bored sexually with his wife. She just won't try anything new. So he goes to a single bar where he shares his problem with another man who just happens to have the remedy for the problem. He knows a woman who is looking for sex, his wife. So an erotic story of threesomes and blackmail begins. Bad ending to this one but a good story. "Sinema" is the story of a Seventh Day Advitist boy who wants to go to the movies more than anything else in the world. But its against his religion and his strict grandmother will not let him go. But there is a minister in the church who just happens to have some movies that he likes to show to young boys. The bad thing is that most of these movies deal with men having sex with other men. And most of the people the minister shows them to, only get to see them once. "Shock Radio" is a good story with an obvious, yet gross ending that is sure to make you laugh. This one is about a Rush Limbaugh type radio DJ who is just evil. Until he gets a taste of his own medicine. And finally "Dr. Krusadian's Method" is a short novel about parents who abuse their children and what can happen if the parents are made to share the childs emotions with him. This story is way too long but it has a good point and some scary moments. This is one your not going to see in paperback anytime soon and your not going to see it for sale at your local B. Daltons or anything like that. But if you don't mind spending $20 for a book, just get to your local horror book store and pick this one up. You will enjoy the ride. The Stranger... ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Movie Reviews: Movie Review: HIDEAWAY by Black Sunshine This is not a typical horror movie in the least. It combines elements of satanism, afterlife, ghosts, psychic abilities and serial killing to get this unique story based on the novel by Dean R. Koontz. The movie begins with a stereotypical Hollywood satanic ritual with a handsome teenage boy entering a tiny room with pentagrams and some kind of demonic chants written on the walls and an altar of dripping black candles at one end. Loud heavy metal music blaring in the background (pretty good, I might add), the guy takes off his shirt and impales himself on a knife he has propped just for this purpose. He writhes for a few seconds before he dies, and then we get a firsthand view of his descent through time and space and into hell. Truly horrific! Decent graphics; computer animation at its finest. For those of you that don't know the story, this movie is about a man, Hatch (played convincingly by Jeff Goldblum) who gets in a car accident and actually remains dead for almost twenty minutes, but a doctor is able to revive him with this special process that he has been working on that has not actually been refined or approved. From then on, Hatch becomes psychically connected to a serial killer, Jeremy, and can even see through his eyes as he kills his victims. The problem? Jeremy can also see through Hatch's eyes and goes after Hatch's fifteen-year old daughter (Alicia Silverstone). The battle comes down to a struggle between good and evil. No, I didn't tell you everything. So don't worry. The camera devices used to capture the scenes where Hatch and Jeremy are seeing through each other's eyes was great. I was impressed with how they pulled this off and how it furthered the movie along. I figured, after reading the novel, that it would looked harried and confused on the screen, but I was wrong. I was also impressed with the acting by both Goldblum and the young man who played Jeremy (who is a no-name actor I'm sorry I can't remember the name of and hope to see more of in other movies). The Jeremy in this movie combines a mixture of charm, brilliance, coldness and cruelness to create a great villain. I was slightly disappointed however, that the movie did not allude to the religious undertones in as much detail as the novel. A lot of the demon/angel explanation was left out of the screenplay. However, the movie was still worth the money and worth watching once, if not more times. I have already seen it twice. I would definitely recommend it; it's a fairly good quality movie experience. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "What happened to you?" he said. "Are you sick? Do you need to see a doctor?" "I'm all right," she said. But when he smoothed her hair back from her face, more dead skin rolled up under his nails... "Darkside" by Dennis Etchison ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The Writer's Block by Jack Flack ... Well, I thought I would write this month's "Writer's Block" for two reasons ... First, because I had a great idea for a subject, and two, due to never ending pressure from The Stranger to actually add something besides my editorial to the Death Certificate (grin). This month, I am going to talk about subject matter, and basically, for that matter, we are going to talk about horror in general, although I'll touch upon some other subjects as well. The question for this month's Writer's Block is "Why Horror?" The reason why I write horror ... well, it would be tough to narrow it down to one reason. One reason is because I like the type of poetry and short stories that the genre seems to produce just by itself. Horror poetry does several things for both it's readers and writers. Horror for readers is great. It's like a mystery that doesn't have to have a happy ending. Horror stories are notorious for twists and turns. Horror for writers, is another thing. Many people think that you can just write a poem that has to do with death or dying, and that makes it horror. Not necessarily. Horror writing is a completely different style of writing that takes time to develop. It's very common for the basic horror writer (and some of us who have been doing it for a while) to fall into ruts. Ruts develop when writers are either new or lazy, and make a writer's stories all run together. Ruts are basically when a writer get's certain words or phrases, and uses them over and over in his writing. The Stranger and I like to call that using a "Horror Thesaurus." And yes, we are guilty of it from time to time as well. For example, if a person calls a knife "a blade" that's fine, but doing it every time in each poem gets a little old. Or, instead of saying "a person dies", if you say "the soul passes on," that's fine. But if you use that phrase in every poem every time, that's called being in a rut, and more importantly, redundant. But when you do horror right, there's no better feeling. I'm sure if you are reading this then you have read poetry before, and you know that there's poetry that is just words on a page, and then every now and then, there's the stuff that really moves you, the stuff that makes you laugh, cry, or just think. Horror is the same way. There's stuff that people read that is just a story with a twist ending or something, but every now and then there's that one that really sends chills up someone's back or makes someone start looking over their back after (or during) reading. That's the response that most of us are shooting for. The best way to achieve this feel or groove is to establish a mood. This is done a couple of ways. One is with the actual story you are telling. The second is the choice of words that you use and poetic styles that you can add, and the third is the right combination of the first two. For example, if you are writing a story about someone who got killed in a car wreck, and the mood is very sad, you might say "and as I held her hand, I felt the life slipping from her and into the night sky," or something like that, that's more of a peaceful way to put it because the leaving of life is passive, not like it was taken away forcefully. If you were writing a horrific version of the same poem (everything depends on the point of view you want to present to the reader) you might make the seperation of the two a little more graphic, like "her grasp was not tight enough to keep hold of the life inside of her, thrusting for escape." It's also important to keep the mood, once you establish it. You wouldn't want something like the lines above, followed by "the nurse in the ambulance said her vital signs were 120 over 400" or something. That ruins everything! Make sure whatever mood you have first established, remains. If it's a dream like poem, make the words vague and "misty" like a dream. If it's real, make the words short and crisp. Choose your words wisely. Theres more to writing horror than just thinking of scary ideas. One thing that I have to add here is that it's a terrible way to set the mood for horror poetry by using rhyming words. Bad rhymes are the fastest way I know to discredit yourself in a hurry. Of course, this is only my opinion, and some people (VERY few) are able to churn out a good horror poem that works. The majority of them however, are simple ABAB poem structures, which just kinda make people laugh at you. In theory, it should be avoided. Of course, in theory, communism works. There are several types of horror to choose from, several styles and fields. I won't claim to be an expert on all styles, as I'm not sure what they all even are. I know there's splatterpunk horror, which is like the type of stories that just hundreds of people get killed, and there's lots of senseless killing and blood and sex. Of course, this is our favorite. :) There's gothic horror, which kinda explains itself, and then what I call "classic" horror, which I think of as just a good scary poem or story. Theres also what I call "real" horror, which is what I write a lot of, which is stuff that's scary in real life, like describing a dentist office visit in a scary way or something. (normally not that cheezy). What ever kind you write is great, just remember that there is a place for them ALL. There are whole magazines dedicated to the Splatterpunk variety, who would reject anything I have written, but I'm sure there are other magazines who would reject all the things that the other one already published! What I'm saying is, don't write for the audience. Write the kind you like and feel, and let the audience find you. One last thing I wanted to touch upon is subject matter. When people write a happy poem about how much they like spring and how great it smells or some shit, It's because that's what they feel. Of course, the way I feel, I always throw in some innocent child who had her head bashed in with a rock and was thrown in the stream, but hey, that's me. Horror lets you express anything you want, from the hate inside you to things that you think need to be changed in the world. You can address almost any type of issue, almost nothing is too taboo for a good horror poem. When you first start out, you will inevidably write generic horror. That is, you'll have half a dozen poems about how someone you loved dies in your arms. You have the vampire poems. You'll have the watching someone die poems. That's fine, and it's a great way to practice writing, but it's not nearly as interesting to anyone else to read than something that's 100% original. Keep at it, and eventually, ideas will come to you. When they start, that's a great way to tell that you need to be committed. No ... it's a great way to tell that you're well on your way to becomming a better horror writer. That should be enough to get you started. Once you get started writing horror, two things will happen. One is ideas will start coming more easy to find ... you won't have to wrack your head so hard. And two, you will start to lose your friends and family because they think you are wierd. No, that's not what will happen. You're stuff will start to get better, after you get the "generic" horror writing out of your blood. Good luck, and start writing! -=> Jack Flack/SaZ <=- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Eulogies On September 23rd, 1994, Robert Bloch died of cancer at the age of 77. He was a writer since the age of 17 who will forever be known as one of the true legends of horror. He wrote a ton of books and short stories but is best known work was "Psycho" which went on to become a classic movie. Although he wrote novels in pretty much every genre, it is his psychological thrillers that brought him the most fame and it is books like "The Scarf" and "Spiderweb" that would be his favorites. In his later years he still spent time writing, he even edited a few anthologies based on one of his favorite subjects, psychopaths. He was well respected and an inspiration to every writer of the horror genere and he will be missed. On October 14th, 1994, Karl Edward Wagner died of heart failure at the age of 48. In 1970 he published the first story of his "Kane" series which he had began writing at the age of 15. In 1974 he got his M.D. from the University of North Carolina and in 1975 he published his first novel entitled "Bloodstone." In 1980 he took over the job as editor of an anthology series entitled "The Year's Best Horrer Stories" which he ran for 15 years which helped break open a giant marker for short story writers as well as making short stories a place where beginners could start off and soon become famous writers. During this time he also published many short stories of his own and many of them were collected in two books entitled "In a Lonely Place" and "Why Not You and I?" Wagner helped short story writers out more then most people know. He helped establish many authors who know sell more books then Wagner could ever have dreamed of. Every horror writer owes him big time. And unfortunatly the book company that published his "Year's Best Horror Stories" has decided not to continue the series. Karl Edward Wagner will forever be missed. The Stranger... ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The landscape stiffens. This might be death. But further is a new, whiter heart Which no one sees, a dear unkilled portion overlooked Harps on. She will not die. Not ever. We knew her once. And, kissing her, have scraped the wall that hides us, each from the rest. . . Phillip K. Dick -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Final Words: Well thats it for this month. This is just a huge pack, we are growing well I think. Thanks to all the new writers and to all the old writers for meeting their deadlines this time. :) Thanks to all the people out there who are keeping lit alive and especially to those of you who are actually reading this. Please pass it around to friends and family. Take care and we will hopefully see you at the beginning of May. And what you just heard was only your house creaking, I promise it didn't come from your closet. Soulz At Zero 95 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Your fingers black from ink as your shaking hands glide down the page, trying to see if your name is on the death certificate. The wind screaming against the window, begging to get in, to get to you. And at last you find the dotted line, written in blood the letters that form your name. A sudden gasp caught in your throat, a flicker of the lights until they fade off completely. The cold touch of fingers as a hand reaches across the bare skin of your neck. Goosebumps rise from your neck just as the lights shine on once more. And once again you are alone. Before you lies the death certificate, your name is no longer written. You have escaped death, for now. The Stranger... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ (C) Copyright SAZ 1995.