Thursday, September 30, 2010

Red "Undead" Redemption - Undead Nightmare Trailer and artwork!



This has been quite a week for Red Dead Redemption. Rockstar Games has been releasing images and video for their "game add-on" Undead Nightmare all week, and I gotta say I am VERY excited!

If you read my previous post about this you'll know that I LOVE Red Dead Redemption, due to it's story and detail it is quite possibly one of the best Western games ever created....and while taking a very realistic game and adding in a Zombie element might seem mildly weird to the uninformed, it is amazingly clever as well. Fighting Zombies in the Old West is Classic!

The story is this:

Unleashed upon the world of Red Dead Redemption, the Undead Nightmare Pack will feature an entirely new mostly single-player campaign that follows John Marston as he tries to find a cure for the highly infectious zombie plague that has spread across the frontier.


WOW!

Yesterday they released some great High Def screen shots, (including John Marston, the games protagonist, riding a Zombie Horse!) which you can see HERE......but its all been leading up to today, when they released the first teaser trailer for the game.



WOW WOW!!

A lot of fans of Red Dead have been complaining that this is going to ruin the integrity of the original game, but they shouldn't worry, Rockstar has confirmed that the story is going to be a separate from the normal game. Personally, their complaints have fallen on the deaf ears of this Weird Westerner.....although I certainly understand their concerns.

The images and trailer look like they've channeled a little bit of Grindhouse, and a smidgen of some Italian Horror, some great 70s horror in general (the original game channels Spaghetti Westerns nicely, especially in the music) and hopefully this "Episode" will be really scary and a lot of fun!

Rockstar has an official site with everything that has been released so far HERE and its a very safe bet that this wont be the end, so as more info and media is released Ill post it here at the Emporium!

Until then......braaaaaaains......

Monday, September 13, 2010

Merkabah Rider 2 and The Blood Bay!


For fans of Edward M. Erdelac's work, he's back with two more tales from the Weird West!

I hate to admit it, but I have yet to read Ed's first book in the Merkabah Rider series, Merkabah Rider: Tales Of A High Planes Drifter.....but in my defense, I'm a terrible book reader. My mind is always running around, and I'm always doing something. So sitting down to read a book takes a bit of a commitment.....I think I have a bit of ADD (or maybe I just drink too much caffeine).....but regardless, a good friend of mine DID read Merkabah Rider 1, and he said it was GREAT.

Well fans of the series have something to be happy about as the adventures of The Rider continue in Merkabah Rider: The Mensch With No Name

Damnation books describes it like this:

The Merkabah Rider continues his journey across the American Southwest of 1880 in search of the renegade teacher who destroyed his mystic Jewish order in the 2nd volume of this acclaimed weird western series. As the Rider unravels more of the mystery of the Hour of the Incursion, demons are the least of his troubles.

The book is once again an anthology, made up of 4 Short stories, The Infernal Napolean, The Damned Dingus, The Outlaw Gods, and The Pandaemonium Ride. These make up episodes 5 though 8 and tell the ongoing adventures of Erdelac's hero.

The book has been released as an ebook through the publisher's website and should be released in hard copy form within the next few weeks.

Also, for a comprehensive review of Mensch With No Name, head on over to Paul Green's Encyclopedia of Weird Westerns site where he actually reads books and doesn't drink too much caffeine!


And speaking of websites, if fans of Ed Erdelac's work haven't been going over to his blog, Delirium Tremens you are missing out. He writes up some fascinating explanations about his work and the inspirations behind his stories. There is a write up about Mensch With No Name, but what I'm specifically thinking of is the second story he released recently, The Blood Bay.

The Blood Bay is one of the short stories in the new Midnight Diner collection. Erdelac describes the story like this:

My own story is about a boy (Jonas) who comes to live on his father’s ranch following the violent death of his estranged mother in a freak accident. His father has remarried, and although Jonas takes to life on a horse ranch, he cannot bring himself to accept his father and stepmother. Then, in an attempt to win his son’s love, Jonas’ father brings him a skittish, wall-eyed blood colored mare and tells the boy he can keep it so long as he can get it to eat...

He also explains that his influences were John Steinbeck's The Red Pony (the bane of many a High School English students) and the Greek Myths of Diomedes and his Man-eating Mares. Particularly "Xanthos (or Xanthus, meaning ‘blonde’ or sometimes ‘bay’).....whom Hercules captured as his eighth labor."

I don't know about you but I think this sounds like a fantastic idea for a short story.....sort of The Red Pony in Hell! Edward talks about his inspirations at length in his article HERE, or if you want to be surprised the Midnight Diner collection can be found HERE, although I haven't been able to find a release date, but they are taking pre-orders.

UPDATE: Merkabah Rider: The Mensch With No Name is available now in both ebook and hard copy formats. They can be bought HERE

Thursday, September 9, 2010

The Dark Tower coming to Movie theaters....AND TV screens!


I don't want to get too excited yet....Ive heard it all before. Everyone has tried to do an adaptation of Stephen King's seven part Weird Western, Fantasy, Horror epic The Dark Tower. First as a TV series, then as a Trilogy, then as a TV series again. Even JJ Abrams tried it....and couldn't.

Well NBC/Universal has announced today that they signed a deal with Stephen King to have all 7 books adapted into 3 movies and (from what Ive been hearing) 2 TV series'. Ron Howard is directing the first film and the first season, Akiva Goldsman is Adapting it, and Brian Grazer will be producing it. Details on the following seasons and film haven't been announced yet.

I dont think this has ever been done before, The New York Times described it as if Lord of the Rings had had a TV series in between each film to bridge the films.....and I agree, although I wonder if it will all be coming out within a few years of each other......and we can expect the cast to be mostly Unknowns due to the high level of commitment they will need to have. I dont think a cast has had this level of involvement in a film series since Harry Potter.

I believe the source for this is Deadline.com so Ill link to that (although its been fire-storming through the Internet so a Google News search will basically bring up the story from most of the news sites.)

The Dark Tower is one of my absolute favorites, I hope this happens! I'll report more on this as details become available!