Anne Rice’s Talamasca: The Secret Order on AMC shows up just a few days before Halloween to liven up the season. For those of you who don’t recognize Talamasca, it’s a new television series created by John Lee Hancock that is based on The Vampire Chronicles and Lives of the Mayfair Witches by Anne Rice.

The Talamasca franchise includes two television series, Interview with the Vampire and Mayfair Witches. Now, Talamasca: The Secret Order, arrives to focus on the Talamasca, a secret society in Anne Rice’s novels who investigate the paranormal. Spooky!

AMC coined the term “Immortal Universe” with the October 2022 release of its Interview with the Vampire series. Notable characters include the vampires Lestat de Lioncourt and Louis de Pointe du Lac, the witch Rowan Mayfair and paranormal investigator and empath Ciprien Grieve.

If you’re an Anne Rice fan, you might want to check this out this six episode series. The first two episodes are available on AMC now. GRADE: Incomplete, but trending towards a B-

Mention My Name in Hell by Daniel Boyd (aka, Dan Stumpf) is the latest Streak Wilson western. Streak is quick with a gun and has both trouble and The Devil following him. In the past two years, Streak has worked for Wells Fargo, protecting valuable, high priority shipments. He’s also killed 8 men in that time span.

Two bizarre characters, Headless Hinchley and Slasher Jim Trask, want one of those valuable, high priority shipments, specifically the one that’s carrying The Grand Grimoire (aka, The Red Dragon or Satan’s Bible).

Streak Wilson is the only thing standing between them and The Grand Grimoire’s incantation for returning the Dead to living form. If you’re in the mood for a weird western with plenty of surprises, Mention My Name in Hell delivers. GRADE: A

The 4-2 Buffalo Bills, coming off their Bye Week, travel to Carolina to take on the 4-3 Panthers. The Bills are 7-point favorites, but I suspect this will be a closer game.

Defensive linemen Michael Hoecht and Larry Ogunjobi were suspended for six games at the start of the 2025 season for violating the NFL’s performance-enhancing drug (PED) policy, but they have now returned to the team and are eligible to play. The Bills need help with their pass rush badly!

How will your favorite NFL team perform today?

“Spidey and Iron Man team up with the Avengers to stop Ultron and Green Goblin from controlling all of the city’s devices.” This long-awaited crossover between Spidey and His Amazing Friends and Iron Man and His Awesome Friends made its debut on Disney+. Spidey and Iron Man: Avengers Team Up marks the first major Avengers story for these preschool-age shows, with supporting characters like Captain America (Sam Wilson), Black Panther, Ms. Marvel, and Hulk rounding out the squad. Ten episodes worth of silly fun!

If you’re a MARVEL fan, this off-beat show might take you back a few decades! Just pretend you’re a kid again! GRADE: Incomplete, but trending towards a B.

During the 1960s, John Brunner published his Zarathustra Refugees Planets series (aka, Zarathustra Trilogy). The books concerned a disastrous nova that forced the millions of residents of Zarathustra to abandon their planet before the nova destroyed it. Over two million escaped Zarathustra in 3000 starships. Many of the ships were lost, but many found livable planets to land on.

The first book in the series, Castaway’s World (aka, Polymath), centers around the survivors of a crashed starship on a hostile planet. The 800 survivors work to secure a food supply and defend themselves from the alien environment. The group is threatened when their water supply is cut off by a second group whose starship crashed on a plateau nearby. The conflict between the two groups amid the dangers of the planet risk everyone’s lives. GRADE: B

The Avengers of Carrig (aka, Secret Agent of Terra), opens with young Maddalena Santos sent to Zarathrustra Refugee Planet #14 to investigate the death of a Galactic agent. Maddalena crashes on the planet when an orbiting space ship attacks the Galactic Patrol cruiser that brought her to ZRP #14. The rest of the novel has Maddalena attempting to stop the group that is looting the planet. GRADE: B+

Repairmen of Cyclops brings Maddalena Santos back to investigate a mystery on the poverty-ridden planet of Cyclops. A former military hero is injured by an alien sea creature and loses part of his leg. The Galactic Patriot base on Cyclops rescues the man, but the doctors determine the leg that was damaged had a mysterious past. Cyclops lacks the technology to regenerate limbs–although the Galactic Patrol does–and Maddalena sets out to determine where that phantom leg came from. The solution triggers a planetary upheaval. GRADE: B

Victims of the Nova brings the expanded stories together in a single volume. Not Brunner’s best work, but entertaining nonetheless!

I think most of you will–like me–be skeptical of the “BEST” in the title of this compilation CD from 2004. I would settle for “good.”

Most of these duets were hits when they first came out. Lionel Richie & Diana Ross’s “Endless Love” became the second-biggest selling single of the year (first was “Bette Davis Eyes” by Kim Carnes) in the United States and reached number one on the Hot 100, where it stayed for nine weeks from August 15 to October 10, 1981. It also topped the Billboard R&B chart and the Adult Contemporary chart, and reached number seven in the United Kingdom. It also became the most successful duet of the rock era, surpassing the Everly Brothers‘ 1957 hit “Wake Up Little Susie“, which spent four weeks at number one. Both songs spent six months on the chart, with “Endless Love” eclipsing the Everlys’ hit by one week. Billboard has named the original version as the greatest song duet of all time.

Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell were a spectacular duet until Tammi’s tragic death. “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” was a classic Motown song. The song was written by Ashford & Simpson, who show up on this CD with another one of their songs, “Solid.”

Linda Ronstadt and Aaron Neville’s “Don’t Know Much” was written by Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil and Tom Snow. Mann was the first to record the song in 1980, gaining a minor chart hit in the US. The song was made famous when it was covered as a duet by Linda Ronstadt and Aaron Neville in 1989. Their version was a worldwide success, topping the Irish Singles Chart and reaching the top 10 in several territories.

Do you remember these duets? Any favorites here? And, what’s up with the dogs? GRADE: B+

TRACK LIST:

Joe Hill (aka, Stephen King’s son) first published 20th Century Ghosts in 2005 with various editions published since then. Given his father’s talent, it shouldn’t be surprising that his son can tell compelling stories, too. In his first book, Hill focuses on ghosts of all sorts.

The best known story in 20th Century Ghosts is “Black Phone” which became a surprise hit movie in 2021. Black Phone 2 is in theaters now and took in $26 million at the Box Office its Opening Weekend. In the original story, a teenage boy is abducted by a serial child killer known as the Grabber. When the boy encounters a mystical black rotary phone in captivity, he uses it to plot his escape by communicating with the ghosts of the Grabber’s slain victims.

In his Introduction, Christopher Golden refers to Joe Hill as “one stealthy bastard” because of his ability to write wistfully supernatural stories and darkly disturbing mainstream fiction. With Halloween just around the corner, 20th Century Ghosts fits right in this stealthy season. GRADE: B+

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

I’ve read a fair amount of Colm Toibin’s novels and essays over the years. Toibin’s latest novel, Long Island, is a sequel to his best selling Brooklyn. I read the book, I enjoyed the movie of the same name in 2015. I read Long Island in order to prepare for this evening of Toibin talking about his work and found I liked Brooklyn better. But Toibin mentioned that negotiations are under way to make a movie based on Long Island.

Of the many Colm Toibin books I’ve read, my favorite is Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know: The Fathers of Wilde, Yeats and Joyce (2018). Toibin teaches a semester long course on James Joyce at Columbia University each year so he knows quite a bit about Joyce’s work and Life.

It’s easy to discern that Colm Toibin is a clever writer because his books are all very clever. But, what I didn’t realize until I heard Toibin speak was that he is a very funny guy. His “talk” seemed complete unscripted and authentic. Later, in the Q&A session, Toibin turned every audience question into a joke filled answer. If you haven’t read Colm Toibin, you’re missing an excellent writer at the top of his game. GRADE: A

Librarian and book critic Becky Siegel Spratford’s Why I Love Horror arrives in the run-up to Halloween with 19 essays by writers of Horror explaining the attraction the genre holds for them.

I confess, I’m not familiar with most of the horror writers in this book–although their essays are fun to read–so I started by reading what two of the writers I was familiar with had to say: Victor LaValle and Grady Hendrix.

I’ve read THE SOUTHERN BOOK CLUB’S GUIDE TO SLAYING VAMPIRES (you can read my review here) and Paperback from Hell (you can read my review here). Hendrix cites Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto as an influence (“I love horror because it’s the one genre that claims to be true.” (p. 136) He also mentions Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw.

I’m a fan of Victor LaValle’s The Ballad of Black Tom. LaValle cites Shirley Jackson, Clive barker, Peter Straub, Stephen King, Robert McCammon, John Saul, and Brian Lumley as influences on his horror writing.

I got a kick out of Hailey Piper’s “The Giant Footprint of Horror” as she explains how she got into Horror at a young age: “The obsession began in probably the best way I could’ve asked for–with Godzilla.” (p. 25). She goes on to explain that Godzilla was “kind of a gateway creature” that led her into her writing profession.

If you’re a fan of books where writers share their secrets and influences, Why I Love Horror will delight you! GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

The 4-2 Buffalo Bills are on a Bye after the disasterous 24-14 loss to the Atlanta Falcons on Monday Night Football. Hopefully, this time off will help the injured players recover and the coaches can right the ship after two straight losses.

How will your favorite NFL team perform today?