Halloween half-price sale! ‘The Rockland Horror: Books 1 through 5: the complete historical arc’

  • Get the Kindle boxset for half-price, now through the morning of October 31st!
  • Horror in the American heartland!
  • Here’s an excerpt from Book 2 (Chapter 1)
August 1882
 
Ellen Briggs, née Ellen Sanders, was in her own house, and she was absolutely terrified.
 
Of course, this was not really her house, was it? It was her marital residence, where she now effectively lived in a state of captivity.
 
Not to mention…absolute terror.
 
She had married Theodore Briggs—railroad tycoon, necromancer, and murderer—only a few months ago.
 
In the early days of the marriage, Briggs had warned her: Stay out of unfamiliar rooms. Although the house was not old, it was home to many old secrets, Briggs had explained.
 
But she had forgotten his warning, in light of all that had happened since then…
Today Ellen had been wandering through the first floor of the massive house. Since her escape attempt earlier in the summer, Briggs seldom allowed her leave. But she could not sit still within these walls. If she remained in one place, she would go completely mad.
 
So today she had gone wandering, even though she had known better.
 
That was how she came across the undead child…
 
The door to the room containing the undead child was located adjacent to the first-floor ballroom. Ellen had opened the door, not realizing that the room connected to the basement via one of the home’s labyrinthine internal tunnels.
 
She reckoned that only later—after it was too late.
 
It was in the basement that her husband kept his worst secrets. Bodies were buried in the basement—and they didn’t always stay buried. Sometimes, they found their way to other parts of the house…
 
Nevertheless, this miscellaneous room had seemed harmless enough when she had first entered it. Heavy draperies were drawn on both of the room’s high windows, but some late afternoon sunlight filtered through.
 
The room seemed made for casual exploration. Various works of art had been stored within it. Paintings bound in frames, but not yet hung, stood stacked against all four walls.
 
Throughout the floor, in a random arrangement, were various statues: of nymphs, cherubs, and Greek deities. There was one life-size replica of the Venus de Milo. There were waist-high vases, and teak dividers carved in what looked like Turkish patterns.
 
The fortunes of Ellen’s husband were vast. He had no doubt purchased most of these items in bulk from a broker, with the intention of placing them around the house at a later date.
 
That work might have been left to Juba, the maidservant whom her husband had ordered killed, for her part in Ellen’s escape attempt. That same escape attempt had also resulted in her husband murdering Wilbur Craine, her former beau and would-be rescuer.
 
As she made her way through the cluttered room, Ellen endeavored to push those thoughts from her mind. She couldn’t think about Juba now. And certainly not about Wilbur.
 
She was kneeling down on the hardwood floor, admiring one of the paintings leant against the wall, when she heard something shift from a corner of the room.
 
Ellen immediately looked away from the landscape painting, toward the movement. She stood up. Something had stirred behind the teak screen in the room’s far corner, near one of the windows.
 
The teak screen was suspended above the floor on a set of wooden legs. In the gap between the screen and the floor, Ellen could see two small feet, clad in simple leather shoes. The shoes were caked with dried mud.
 
The feet moved toward the edge of the screen, but not in proper steps. One foot dragged behind the other.
 
A small figure stepped out from behind the screen. It was short, between four and five feet tall. The very sight of it was absolutely terrifying.
 
***End of excerpt****
 

**View the complete boxset on Amazon***

The Bruce Springsteen biopic: a film in search of a target market?

The biopic Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere hit cinemas on October 24. Box office results were underwhelming. On its opening weekend, Deliver Me from Nowhere earned $9.1 million, trailing behind Black Phone 2 and a romcom called Regretting You.

I love horror. But if a horror film is beating your movie, there is most likely a problem somewhere.

Conservative media sources are blaming Springsteen’s (leftwing, of course) political activism in recent election cycles.  But leftwing politics have seldom hurt mainstream celebrities. Continue reading “The Bruce Springsteen biopic: a film in search of a target market?”

1980s tech was expensive, and it didn’t do much

I vaguely remember the TRS-80 Pocket Computer. Introduced in 1980, this little device was manufactured and marketed by the Tandy Corporation/Radio Shack. (Every shopping mall in the 1980s had a Radio Shack.) Science fiction author Isaac Asimov appeared in a series of marketing spots for the gadget.

1980 Radio Shack ad featuring the TRS-80 Pocket Computer and Isaac Asimov

I didn’t own a TRS-80 Pocket Computer, however. The MSRP was $169.95. In present-day money, that’s about $670—the cost of a base-model iPhone.

And of course, the TRS-80 Pocket Computer had a minimal functionality when compared to an iPhone. It couldn’t make phone calls, play music, or take photos. It couldn’t surf the Internet—which didn’t yet exist, anyway.

The TRS-80 Pocket Computer was programmable in BASIC (which couldn’t do much for the average consumer). Other than that, it was basically a glorified pocket calculator.

Herein lies an important realization about 1980s tech: it was very expensive, and it didn’t do much. Even if you could afford it, you usually concluded that you could do without it.

-ET

Reagan, tariffs, and the 1980s

Yesterday President Trump announced an additional 10 percent tariff on Canadian products. The president claims to have done this because the Canadian province of Ontario aired an anti-tariff commercial that featured quotes from US President Ronald Reagan.

The commercial uses quotes from a 1987 Reagan speech. Among the included Reagan quotes are “Over the long run… trade barriers hurt every American worker and consumer,” and “When someone says, ‘Let’s impose tariffs on foreign imports,’ it looks like they’re doing the patriotic thing by protecting American products and jobs. And sometimes, for a short while, it works — but only for a short time.”

President Trump called Ontario’s use of the Reagan quotes “dirty play”, and accused the Ontario government of “twisting Reagan’s words”.

I remember Ronald Reagan. Reagan was basically the president I grew up with. I was in junior high when Reagan took office in January 1981, and in college when Reagan left the White House in January 1989.

Throughout the 1980s, the Democratic Party was known as the party of tariffs and protectionism. Congressional Democrats like Dick Gephardt, Dan Rostenkowski, and Lloyd Bentsen repeatedly sponsored bills that would impose protective tariffs on our trading partners, especially Japan and South Korea.

Republicans generally opposed these measures. Opposition to managed trade, and the promotion of free trade, was a consistent theme of both the Reagan and the George H.W. Bush administrations.

Republicans of the 1980s were almost universally opposed to protective tariffs. Democrats were in favor of them.

Once again, folks: I remember watching all of this on TV as it happened. At the time, Americans were concerned about the struggling US domestic automobile and electronics industries. Trade-related debates were constantly in the news.

Outside of Congress and the White House, opinions varied. Critics charged Democrats with being too cozy with the unions (who favored protectionism). Republicans were accused of favoring business and economic growth over the concerns of the working class.

Forty years later, we can have a spirited debate about which side was correct, but two basic facts are indisputable: the Republican Party of the Reagan era was pro-free trade, and tariffs/protectionism was the default Democratic Party position.

There is, of course, another side to this. Neither of our two major political parties is what it was in the 1980s, back when the world made a lot more sense.

The Democratic Party used to be the party of farmers and factory workers. The Republican Party, on the other hand, used to function as a pro-free market, pro-business party.

In the 1980s, then, we had one party to make sure the people were taken care of, and one party to make sure there was money to take care of the people.

Today the Democratic Party is the party of Drag Queen Story Hour, open borders, and other fringe positions. The GOP, meanwhile, has become the party of MAGA, at times indistinguishable from a personality cult. At the national level, I’m not sure if there are any Republicans remaining who are willing to oppose President Trump’s positions when he goes off the rails. (Maybe Rand Paul, a little.)

But here’s the point, where Reagan is concerned. You can choose your own interpretation of history, but you can’t choose your own historical facts. If you want to claim that Reagan and the GOP of the 1980s were wrong about free trade, you can do that. But you can’t deny that Reagan and the GOP of the 1980s were opposed to protective tariffs and in favor of free trade. Those of us who were there remember the truth.

-ET

****

TERMINATION MAN

A ruthless business consultant meets an even more ruthless client. But is he willing to commit murder in order to complete the job?

***View it on Amazon***

My internet service provider boiled my frog

There is an old chestnut about placing a frog in a kettle filled with room-temperature water. Beneath the kettle is a burner.

If you heat the kettle a little at a time, the frog won’t realize that the water is getting hotter. As a result, the frog will unwittingly remain in the kettle until the water reaches the boiling point, thereby killing it.

(Since this is the internet, please note: I do not recommend boiling frogs; nor were any amphibians harmed in the writing of this post. The above is merely a metaphor.)

After dabbling with dial-up Prodigy internet services for a few years, I enrolled with Time Warner Cable for broadband internet access in 2003. Time Warner Cable did an excellent job, providing quality service for a reasonable price.

Then in 2016, Spectrum Internet acquired Time Warner Cable. That was the point at which my frog was placed in the kettle filled with water. Continue reading “My internet service provider boiled my frog”

The Headless Horseman returns

How I wrote a horror novel called Revolutionary Ghosts

Or…

Can an ordinary teenager defeat the Headless Horseman, and a host of other vengeful spirits from America’s revolutionary past?

The big idea

I love history, and I love supernatural horror tales.  “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” was therefore always one of my favorite short stories. This classic tale by Washington Irving describes how a Hessian artillery officer terrorized the young American republic several decades after his death.

The Hessian was decapitated by a Continental Army cannonball at the Battle of White Plains, New York, on October 28, 1776. According to some historical accounts, a Hessian artillery officer really did meet such an end at the Battle of White Plains. I’ve read several books about warfare in the 1700s and through the Age of Napoleon. Armies in those days obviously did not have access to machine guns, flamethrowers, and the like. But those 18th-century cannons could inflict some horrific forms of death, decapitation among them.

I was first exposed to the “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” via the 1949 Disney film of the same name. The Disney adaptation was already close to 30 years old, but still popular, when I saw it as a kid sometime during the 1970s.

Headless Horsemen from around the world

While doing a bit of research for Revolutionary Ghosts, I discovered that the Headless Horseman is a folklore motif that reappears in various cultures throughout the world.

In Irish folklore, the dullahan or dulachán (“dark man”) is a headless, demonic fairy that rides a horse through the countryside at night. The dullahan carries his head under his arm. When the dullahan stops riding, someone dies.

Scottish folklore includes a tale about a headless horseman named Ewen. Ewen was  beheaded when he lost a clan battle at Glen Cainnir on the Isle of Mull. His death prevented him from becoming a chieftain. He roams the hills at night, seeking to reclaim his right to rule.

Finally, in English folklore, there is the 14th century epic poem, “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”. After Gawain kills the green knight in living form (by beheading him) the knight lifts his head, rides off, and challenges Gawain to a rematch the following year.

But Revolutionary Ghosts is focused on the Headless Horseman of American lore: the headless horseman who chased Ichabod Crane through the New York countryside in the mid-1790s. 

The Headless Horseman isn’t the only historical spirit to stir up trouble in the novel. John André, the executed British spy, makes an appearance, too. (John André was a real historical figure.)

I also created the character of Marie Trumbull, a Loyalist whom the Continental Army sentenced to death for betraying her country’s secrets to the British. But Marie managed to slit her own throat while still in her cell, thereby cheating the hangman. Marie Trumbull was a dark-haired beauty in life. In death, she appears as a desiccated, reanimated corpse. She carries the blade that she used to take her own life, all those years ago.

Oh, and Revolutionary Ghosts also has an army of spectral Hessian soldiers. I had a lot of fun with them!

The Spirit of ’76

Most of the novel is set in the summer of 1976. An Ohio teenager, Steve Wagner, begins to sense that something strange is going on near his home. There are slime-covered hoofprints in the grass. There are unusual sounds on the road at night. People are disappearing.

Steve gradually comes to an awareness of what is going on….But can he convince anyone else, and stop the Headless Horseman, before it’s too late?

I decided to set the novel in 1976 for a number of reasons. First of all, this was the year of the American Bicentennial. The “Spirit of ’76 was everywhere in 1976. That created an obvious tie-in with the American Revolution.

Nineteen seventy-six was also a year in which Vietnam, Watergate, and the turmoil of the 1960s were all recent memories. The mid-1970s were a time of national anxiety and pessimism (kind of like now). The economy was not good. This was the era of energy crises and stagflation.

Reading the reader reviews of Revolutionary Ghosts, I am flattered to get appreciative remarks from people who were themselves about the same age as the main character in 1976:

“…I am 62 years old now and 1976 being the year I graduated high school, I remember it pretty well. Everything the main character mentions (except the ghostly stuff), I lived through and remember. So that was an added bonus for me.”

“I’m 2 years younger than the main character so I could really relate to almost every thing about him.”

I’m actually a bit younger than the main character. In 1976 I was eight years old. But as regular readers of this blog will know, I’m nostalgic by nature. I haven’t forgotten the 1970s or the 1980s, because I still spend a lot of time in those decades.

If you like the 1970s, you’ll find plenty of nostalgic nuggets in Revolutionary Ghosts, like Bicentennial Quarters, and the McDonald’s Arctic Orange Shakes of 1976.

***

Also, there’s something spooky about the past, just because it is the past. As L.P. Hartley said, “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”

For me, 1976 is a year I can clearly remember. And yet—it is shrouded in a certain haziness. There wasn’t nearly as much technology. Many aspects of daily life were more “primitive” then.

It isn’t at all difficult to believe that during that long-ago summer, the Headless Horseman might have come back from the dead to terrorize the American heartland…

View REVOLUTIONARY GHOSTS on Amazon

Horror from the 1980s

Or…why I chose to set 12 Hours of Halloween in the year 1980.

A reader recently asked me via email why I chose to set 12 Hours of Halloween, my coming-of-age horror novel about three friends who battle supernatural forces on Halloween Night, in 1980 instead of the present day.

Good question.

There are two reasons behind this choice.

First of all: there’s the generational factor.

What I mean by this is: I know my limits.

Although 12 Hours of Halloween is a supernatural tale, it is also a coming-of-age story. This means that it involves getting into the “head space” of the story’s adolescent protagonists.

Some aspects of adolescence are universal. But others are heavily dependent on changing generational factors.

I’m a member of Generation X (born in 1968). This generation reached the early teen years of adolescence around 1980—the year in which 12 Hours of Halloween is set.

I figured that I could depict the adolescent experience in 1980 most accurately, because I actually lived it. (I turned 12 in 1980.)  I’ve written before about the perils of middle-age adults writing about the present-day teen experience: During the 1980s, most of the teen films were written by Baby Boomers; and certain aspects of these movies seemed anachronistic, because the scriptwriters were actually writing about the teen experience of the 1950s and 1960s—even though they thought they were writing about the 1980s.

Another reason I chose to set 12 Hours of Halloween in 1980 is: The past is haunted.

The year 1980 is now 45 years in the past. (1980 was 35 years in the past when I published 12 Hours of Halloween in 2015.)

That is recent enough to be accessible to most readers, but distant enough to be surrounded by a certain haziness.

That year is  not quite like our own. After all, in 1980, there was no Internet, and no cell phones. We had television, but cable TV was still a “new” thing.

It isn’t difficult to believe that in 1980, wayward spirits and vengeful supernatural creatures walked the earth in one Ohio suburb—just like in the book.

***

Want to read 12 Hours of Halloween? You can preview the book here on this site, or get it on Amazon (available in multiple formats.)

‘No Kings’ observations

There were some “No Kings” protests in Cincinnati this Saturday.

Everyone has the right to protest the policies of our government, regardless of the party in power. Conservative “Tea Party” protestors certainly made their presence known here in Ohio during the Obama years. Ohio was also the scene of multiple protests against Covid-19 lockdowns.

Moreover, democracy, by its very nature, is an iterative exercise, a conversation. (Peaceful) public protests are part of that conversation.

Nevertheless, I have some criticisms. Continue reading “‘No Kings’ observations”

Rush ticket prices and some economic curmudgeonliness

After a ten-year hiatus and the death of drummer/songwriter Neil Peart, Rush is about to go back on tour again with a replacement drummer, Anika Nilles.

That should be good news. But have you seen the ticket prices?

While the exact numbers vary by city, early reports indicate ticket prices in the mid-three-figure range, with four figures not unheard of, especially when resellers are involved.

This is part of a phenomenon that is much bigger than Rush and rock concerts. Continue reading “Rush ticket prices and some economic curmudgeonliness”

On my Japanese TBR list

Whenever I go to Japan, a book haul is always near the top of my to-do list. Japanese-language books are not impossible to acquire in the United States; but it’s seldom as convenient as placing an order on Amazon. 

This title would loosely translate as History of the Showa Era that Citizens Don’t Know.

As the cover image suggests, there are numerous chapters about the Japanese Imperial Navy and World War II.

One of the many rewards of learning a foreign language well is that your potential reading list will be vastly expanded. Some of my favorite books are Japanese-language titles.

-ET

 

Why I love Halloween

It’s that season of the year again!

Last night I went out for a walk in my neighborhood around 7 pm. (We’ve had an unseasonably warm spell here in the Cincinnati area.) I didn’t take into account how quickly the dusk settles in this late in the year. I was only halfway out when it suddenly became very…well, dark.

I therefore walked back to my house in the dark. The houses around me were festooned with various Halloween decorations: skulls, black cats, and even some cool Halloween projector lights.

I love Halloween. For me, Halloween is the time when we mortals come to terms with two constants of human existence: a.) the unknown, and b.) the inevitability of death.

The celebration of Halloween is an act of acceptance. Our lives will always contain tragedy, dissatisfactions, and uncertainty. But we cannot allow ourselves to paralyzed by fear…or by sadness.

Halloween is a time when we laugh at death, and embrace our mortality.

A few years ago, I wrote a Halloween novel called 12 HOURS OF HALLOWEEN. This nostalgic, coming-of-age horror tale is set on Halloween night, 1980. Check it out here.

View 12 HOURS OF HALLOWEEN on Amazon

My last Halloween (the true story)

How egg-throwing teenage boys ruined my last trick-or-treat

My novel 12 HOURS OF HALLOWEEN is a supernatural coming-of-age tale about three young friends who endure the trials of a 12-hour curse on Halloween night, 1980. To survive the night, they must battle vampires, animated trees, and the horrific creature known as the “head collector”.

12 HOURS OF HALLOWEEN is one of the most autobiographical novels I’ve ever written. Like the characters in the novel, I was 12 years old in October 1980. The suburban Cincinnati, Ohio setting is very similar to the one in which I spent my formative years.

That said, the main character of the story, Jeff Schaeffer, doesn’t have much in common with me, or with the boy I was more than 40 years ago. And while I had a group of friends, neither Leah nor Bobby is an exact representation of anyone I knew back then.

Oh, and I never did battle with any of the supernatural creatures that appear in the book.

Here is another point of fabrication: I went on my last trick-or-treat in 1979, not in 1980.

I set 12 HOURS OF HALLOWEEN in 1980 because some of the themes I wanted to explore required an adolescent perspective; and I was twelve in 1980, not in 1979.

But like the characters in the novel, I was somewhat torn (as were the adults around me) about the appropriate age for giving up the trick-or-treat ritual.

In the culture of those times, you were generally okay for trick-or-treating up to age ten or eleven. But once you reached junior high, well, people would give you funny looks if you showed up at their door on October 31st, asking for candy. And once you reached high school, you were definitely too old.

***

In 1979, therefore, my friend Ken and I decided to go out for “one last Halloween”, kind of like the characters in the novel. (Ken, being a year older than me, actually did turn twelve that year.)

I wore a prefabbed costume from Kmart. I don’t even remember what it was. (I seem to recall a green skeleton, but I can’t be sure.) Ken, however, had one of the coolest Halloween costumes I’ve ever seen—before or since.

This was the early Star Wars era, and every kid was a fan. Ken was no exception. His mother made for him a very elaborate imperial stormtrooper costume. This was not something store-bought. She made the whole thing from scratch. It was amazing.

Halloween 1979 in the Cincinnati area provided a clear, pleasantly cool autumn night. We set out a little after 6 p.m., and everything went fine…at first. Then we crossed paths with a group of teenage boys, a hot rod, and some eggs.

***

One thing I’ve noticed about the 21st-century: suburban teenagers are less mischievous than they used to be.

This could be because of helicopter parenting. How much trouble can you get into when your parents are tracking your movements on a smart phone app? Kids today are also very absorbed in virtual worlds of different kinds.

In the late 1970s, however, adolescent entertainment consisted of whatever was on network television (cable TV didn’t become common until about 1982), books, and other young people.

And since there were no parental tracking apps, your parents typically had only a vague sense of your whereabouts at any given moment.

In this atmosphere of fewer ready-made distractions and much less supervision, there were more motives and opportunities for getting into trouble. And plenty of teenage boys jumped at the chance.

***

This particular group of teenage boys, riding around on Halloween night 1979, had decided that it would be fun to throw eggs at the kids who were still young enough to go trick-or-treating.

They were obviously selecting their victims at random. I will retroactively blame Ken for our being singled out. His solid white stormtrooper outfit really did make him a target.

The car—it must have been a Dodge Charger or a Trans Am—slowed down as it approached. Ken and I had no time to assess the situation, let alone take evasive action. Then someone in the passenger seat threw some white objects at us via their rolled-down window.

The car roared away before we realized what had happened: they had pelted us with eggs.

Ken had been walking closest to the road, and he was a mess. The stormtrooper outfit his mother had so painstakingly crafted was now smeared with dripping yellow egg yolk.

Some of the eggs had splattered on me, too…though not very much.

After that, we decided to call it an early night. Neither one of us wanted to walk around dressed like an omelette.

At least the boys didn’t throw rotten eggs at us, I would think later.

***

My guess is that the egg-throwing foray was a spur-of-the-moment thing for the boys.

Speaking of the teenage boys: I never learned their identities. Whoever they were, though, they would all be pushing sixty in 2021.

***

So that was how my last Halloween went, in 1979 and not in 1980. By Halloween 1980, I decided for myself that I had had enough of Halloween and trick-or-treat. It was time to let that childhood ritual go.

Halloween, nevertheless, retains a strong grip on my imagination. 12 HOURS OF HALLOWEEN was therefore a very fun book to write as an adult.

***View 12 HOURS OF HALLOWEEN on Amazon***

The Columbus Day debate, 2025 edition

Another Columbus Day, and another debate over colonization, historical grievances, and whether we should rename the holiday ‘Indigenous People’s Day’.

This argument has arisen each year since at least the 1990s. It is what the Japanese call a 水掛け論 (pronounced mizukakeron) or “endless debate”.

You’ve heard much of this before, so I’ll be brief.

The Native American experience with European settlers was not a monolithic one.

Some Native American tribes were fierce. In 1813, a large force of Creek Indians slaughtered over five hundred US civilians and militiamen near present-day Mobile, Alabama. This became known as the Fort Mims massacre.

The Comanche were cruel to both other Native American tribes and white settlers alike. The Plains Indians were also formidable fighters.

Other native tribes were rapidly subjugated.

Many (most) Native American tribes got raw deals once the shooting stopped. In many cases, the victors (the US government) altered the terms of the agreements retroactively. Continue reading “The Columbus Day debate, 2025 edition”

NKU staffing cuts, and my college days

Longtime readers may know that I attended two universities here in the Cincinnati area: Northern Kentucky University (NKU) and the University of Cincinnati (UC).

I have pleasant memories of both of them, but I especially enjoyed my time at NKU. I was a student there during the 1986-1987 academic year. The university had been founded the year I was born (1968). NKU felt like a dynamic academic institution that was rapidly growing.

Oh, what a difference 39 years can make. NKU is now suffering from a budget shortfall and declining enrollment. The university recently announced that it will eliminate 1% of its existing workforce. An unspecified number of vacant positions will also be eliminated.

I saw the news on Facebook, where the rule of thumb is: Don’t read the comments. But of course I did. There were plenty of people blaming both Donald Trump and “woke” professors. Continue reading “NKU staffing cuts, and my college days”

‘Red Storm Rising’ by Tom Clancy (reading notes)

Some quick reading notes…
 
I’ve been reading Tom Clancy’s 1986 novel, Red Storm Rising.
 
The book posits a war between NATO and the Soviet Union in the 1980s.
 
Here’s the odd thing: 
 
Clancy decided to more or less ignore nuclear weapons, making this hypothetical war a solely conventional one. Not a very realistic story choice, but Red Storm Rising would have quickly become a post-apocalyptic novel otherwise.
 
It’s interesting reading, if you like long battle scenes and the other books in Tom Clancy’s oeuvre.
 
-ET