Recently, we had the chance to sit down with industry veteran Kenneth Hite, who is a horror game designer, author and columnist. You may have read some of Ken Hite’s columns through Weird Tales or Out of the Box at Indie Press Revolution. In this interview, we talk a little bit about the Origins-award winning title Tour de Lovecraft and the recent release of The Day After Ragnarok, horror as a genre versus mood, the Windy City, his upcoming projects and much, much more!

Anthony Ziccardi, Vice President and Associate Publisher of Pocket Books, has announced a new co-publishing venture with Permuted Press , best known for horror, dark fantasy and science fiction novels . The seven book deal was brokered by Marc Gerald at the Agency Group. The books will be Zombie focused, with the first release DAY TO DAY ARMAGEDDON by J.L. Bourne, slated
for October 2009.

“I am excited to be the pioneer author for the Pocket Books and Permuted Press joint publishing venture. Horror fans are in for an absolute thrill and can expect to enjoy bold, fresh and riveting fiction as a result of this project. The journey with Permuted Press has been a great success and I know that success will be further enhanced as we shift gears into a new and exciting relationship with Pocket Books. Keep your doors locked!” –J.L. Bourne

Who do you trust?

A millennia-long search for an ancient Atlantean artifact, the Abedju Cipher, is about to come to an end. Pentacle mages to the Seers of the Throne have sought out the Cipher over the centuries, using both overt and covert means to track down it or its previous owners. Tensions have risen over it more often than not, and many oaths of enmity have been sworn on all sides. Amidst the quest to possess the Abedju Cipher, a number of factions close in to capture the Cipher for their own hidden agendas.

A story in the Storytelling Adventure System for Mage: The Awakening.

The Abedju Cipher is available at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop.

More Nachos Entertainment has acquired the rights to the highly anticipated role-playing game Eclipse Phase. Game veterans Rob Boyle and Davidson Cole are actively developing the feature film script.

Eclipse Phase is set in the future, but in a time that is closer than we want to believe. Earth has been destroyed and humanity stands on the cusp of a new age where humankind has merged with technology. This new transhumanity has colonized Mars and the solar system, though it remains divided between repressive hypercorp-backed regimes and techno-anarchist strongholds. Biotechnology allows humans to repair or replace their bodies, while artificial intelligence has grown to staggering levels with cognitive science and nanotechnology, making uploading the human mind possible. Transferring the mind digitally across great distances is now the preferred means of travel.

David Wellington, Jess Hartley, Derek Gunn, Shane Lacy Hensley and eight other horror authors descend on the small town of Pinebox, Texas where nothing is as it seems. With music graciously provided by Nox Arcana, this book trailer is a taste of the nightmares you’ll experience when you read this collection of short stories.

Buried Tales of Pinebox, Texas is available now at Amazon.com and DriveThruHorror.com.

In young adult fiction, you’ve probably noticed a lot of urban fantasy and paranormal books hitting the market. Strange Angels, written by veteran author Lili St. Crow (You might recognize Lilith Saint Crow’s work from the Dante Valentine and The Night Shift series), is a dark exploration of what happens when a teenager named Dru finds herself lost, alone and in a fight for her survival.

Strange Angels is clearly, in my opinion, a novel that is right on target in its depiction of teenagers. The characters are not fully grown, beautiful and confident; they are awkward, tumbling and self-conscious. Dru is not the prettiest, or the most popular, or even the most sought-after girl in this small town. She’s a transplant who meandered around the country with her father hunting beings from the Real World, which is a world hidden beneath the surface of our own that houses all manner of creatures.

Venture Beyond the Threshold of Madness…

Nox Arcana dares you to explore the shadows of a forsaken sanitarium that is haunted by the souls of the dead and plagued by the dark essence of evil. The hollow edifice of Blackthorn Asylum stands as a bleak monument to the horrors that once lurked within its desolate halls.

This sinister soundscape contains 21 tracks of ghostly melodies, pulse-pounding orchestrations and spine-chilling sound effects to set a dark, nightmarish mood.

Blackthorn Asylum is available now at Amazon.com.

FlamesRising.com is proud to offer you a chapter preview for the book Demon Mistress by New York Times bestselling author Yasmine Galenorn. When we asked Yasmine about this new book in her Otherworld series, she mentioned that:

When I was writing Demon Mistress, it quickly became apparent that my tag line for it was going to be both awesome and bizarre. I told my editor that it was going to be, “Revenge of the Nerds meets Hell Boy, meets Lovecraft.” There wasn’t much she could say to that until it arrived on her desk and she read it. Then, she understood, and she loved it. I had a lot of fun with this book, and so far reviews are backing up my feeling that my readers will also love it, too. — Yasmine Galenorn

We hope you enjoy this preview of Demon Mistress, the sixth book in the Otherworld Series.

Courage and Honour is the fifth book in the hugely successful Ultramarines series featuring the Courageous Captain Uriel Ventris and his Veteran Sergeant Pasanius.

This book is in many ways like coming full circle in the series. Uriel Ventris’ first mission as captain was to put down a rebellion on the Imperial world, Pavonis and this novel has the 4th company returning to the same troubled planet.

Following shortly after the events of The Killing Ground, we are shown flashback scenes of the testing of Ventris and Pasanius. Testing them both for purity: Mind and Body. After all, these two Astartes have been alone and fighting their way back from the Eye of Terror, a mission which should have most likely claimed his life (and possibly his soul).

Review by Jeff Preston