I had the very distinct pleasure of reading an early edition of Peter Straub’s newest novel, A Dark Matter (out tomorrow: 2/9). It’s Peter Straub being Peter Straub, which is to say “brilliant.” I’m partial, sure, having been a fan of Peter’s since reading Shadowland so many years ago, but if you’re only familiar with Peter Straub because of his connection to Stephen King, you owe it to yourself as a reader to pick up his work. And this new novel would be one heck of a good place to start.

We’ll be talking more about this book in the very near future, but for now, why not take a look at this book trailer? It helps to set the mood…

Looks good, right? Yeah, and it reads even better. Here’s what it’s all about:

The charismatic and cunning Spenser Mallon is a campus guru in the 1960s, attracting the devotion and demanding sexual favors of his young acolytes. After he invites his most fervent followers to attend a secret ritual in a local meadow, the only thing that remains is a gruesomely dismembered body—and the shattered souls of all who were present.

Years later, one man attempts to understand what happened to his wife and to his friends by writing a book about this horrible night, and it’s through this process that they begin to examine the unspeakable events that have bound them in ways they cannot fathom, but that have haunted every one of them through their lives. As each of the old friends tries to come to grips with the darkness of the past, they find themselves face-to-face with the evil triggered so many years earlier.

Unfolding through the individual stories of the fated group’s members, A Dark Matter is an electric, chilling, and unpredictable novel that will satisfy Peter Straub’s many ardent fans, and win him legions more.

The Super Bowl was yesterday.

Congratulations to the Saints, the New Orleans National Football League team!

American football is essentially despised compared to the other football around the world. In the US, we call that other football soccer. Upwards to 90 million people watch the Super Bowl; in comparison, the 2006 World Cup final had more than 715 million people watching it. You can see why people around the world don’t understand why Americans call a sport football that is not football.

What is not despised around the world, something we can all agree on, are the new trailers that Hollywood generates specifically for a Super Bowl spot!

In my opinion, the Super Bowl ads this year were lacking something fierce. It was easy to see where these companies had cut back their marketing spending in a tough recession. Hollywood though did take the time to produce a couple quality trailers for forthcoming films! Here they are, with more on the second page!

Robin Hood

More after the jump!

NESTROBBER • Jo Duffy (story), Maya Sakamoto (art) • Blue Sky Blue (1992-1994) • 2 issues • Science Fiction Action • Unrated/All Ages (violence)
Unfinished action-espionage series, drawn by a Japanese artist and written by early manga fan and ex-Marvel editor Jo Duffy, who worked on the original Epic edition of Akira. In the first issue the “Birds of Prey,” a commando team of special operatives, attempt to prevent a nuclear explosion; the second issue jumps forward 17 years for incidental comedy and what appears to be the beginning of a possibly sci-fi story arc about the children they left behind, but based on this fragment, Duffy’s intentions for the story are inscrutable. The faintly Akimi Yoshida-like art is diligent but amateurish. A related short story was published in Dark Horse Presents #67-69.

Talk about an obscure manga… although, since it’s a work created for the U.S. market by an American and a Japanese creator, many people wouldn’t consider it a “manga” at all. I love ambitious comic/manga projects, and I have a lot of sympathy for unfinished ones which never got off the ground for whatever reason, but “Nestrobber” is just too fragmentary to stand up on its own even as a piece of “what might have been.” It’s interesting how the art looks a tiny bit like Scott McCloud’s early work. Did I mention that Jo Duffy was one of the rewriters on the VIZ edition of the Naruto manga?

Today’s winner is Tracey D. of Maryland! The other day I also received a picture from Kathleen, one of the winners of the “Tell Me About Your Character” contest at kingofrpgs.com!

Kathleen chose the yaoi prize batch, and in her own words: “I think when your yaoi castle is attacked, the proper response is ‘Man the fornications!’ XD ” Kathleen also participated in the suvudu live chat RPG as Sardinha the lizardwoman. It was awesome playing with you, Kathleen! Hope you enjoy your yaoi manga, and happy reading and gaming!

THE PARADISE ON THE HILL (Oka no Ue no Rakuen, “The Paradise on the Hill”) (丘の上の楽園) • Momoko Tenzen • DMP (2007) • Taiyou Tosho (Craft Original Comics Anthology, 2002) • 1 volume • Yaoi, Romance • 16+
Stuffy, emotionally constipated girls’ high school teacher Kijima develops a friendship with awkward, unsure PE teacher Ono after Ono asks Kijima how to deal with the unwanted attentions of their all-female pupils. They then most of the book nearly confessing their love to each other under the leafy boughs of the school grounds or in the refuge of Kijima’s office. It’s a sweet if rather slow tale of blossoming love, and the characters are rather well rounded, especially Tsuda, the female teacher who pushes Kijima and Ono into confronting their feelings. However, despite the book’s charm, the dialogue, pacing and art are not particularly remarkable. Instead, it’s an all-you-can-eat buffet of Boy’s Love clichés—the constant longing looks, lengthy introspection, the assumption by both parties that their love could only be one-sided. The bonus story, “Summer Rain,” is a short poetic tale of a young man and the aftermath of his tragic relationship with a married man. (Review by Leia Weathington)

Today’s review is by comic artist/writer Leia Weathington. And today’s winner is Jared W. of Massachusetts! Congratulations, Jared, and I hope your manga love blossoms under the leafy boughs of whatever tree you choose to read your forthcoming manga under.

*Hello With Cheese

Oh yeah—webcomics can be topical. I wonder if Dwight Freeney’s ankle will hold up enough to make him the Gandalf of this Super Bowl.

One of the things I love to do when reading webcomics is see what other comics they’re advertising on their site—it’s a feature of the community that I love, because not only do bigger webcomics produce revenue, but they also get the word out about up-and-coming comics that they usually enjoy themselves (while not a hard-and-fast rule, since the creators are the ones running their own sites, it stands to reason they’re making advertising decisions, and I hope that extends to advertising things they have at least some respect for. Perhaps I’m naïve in this regard).

I won’t lie, though—often what I stumble across isn’t really all that good. That’s not to say there isn’t a reason to enjoy the webcomics I’m being hyper-whisked to, but, law of averages, I’m not going to be a steady reader after this initial experience.

Not so, though, with my new find: Hello With Cheese.

I mean, I clicked over from Something Positive, and what I found was pure gold.

Or, pure ether-gold (Please, someone write a SF story about aether-gold? Thank you).

I mean, to put my excitement into context about this webcomic, I actually ran over to Mike (my Funn-e-Pages hetero lifemate) to tell him about it. Granted, I was reading it during work, but I like to think that counts as work.

Right?

A series of one-offs, rather like Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, I was literally laughing out loud (but not rolling on the floor laughing—need to clean the cube soon) at absurdities such as this:

“I’m out for dead presidents to represent me…against the zombies”—Nas.

It’s that kind of nerding that makes me feel like I have the best job in the world.

ANZU: THE SHARDS OF MEMORY (Anzu: Kioku no Hakuhen, “Anzu: The Shards of Memory”) (ANZU〜記憶の薄片〜) • Kirikaze • Icarus Publishing (2007) • France Shoin (2004) • 1 volume • Occult Adult • 18+ (nudity, graphic sex)
A gaggle of cheerful Comiket-attending schoolgirls (and a cross-dressing boyfriend) enjoy their youthful school days while their student council president is serial raped, gets pregnant and commits suicide. The rapists then turn their attention towards the “heroines” and psychic powers, martial arts, and completely unexplained flashbacks to some ninja war start flying fast and heavy in this completely nonsensical and plot-heavy manga. The art is intermittently charming, but generally dated and extremely busy. The sex is mean and brutal. And despite there being a lot of it, there isn’t a plot so much a series of ridiculous events that might involve the same characters. The only consolation is that, in the end, the rapists are suitably punished. (Review by Derek Guder)

Today’s winner is Ryan C. of West Virginia. Congratulations, Ryan! Today’s adult manga review was written by Derek Guder, one of my Manga: The Complete Guide collaborators. As usual with the adult reviews, the front cover itself was so, uh, adult, that you’ll have to be content with this small excerpt of it.

Having just talked about why I think up-and-coming writers—or people just interested in studying the development of fantasy—would be well served to participate in role-playing games, I’m now going to look at the yang to that particular yin. (Does that sound dirty, or is it just me?) Specifically, what you should not take from your RPG experience and transfer directly to your writing. (Those of you who aren’t gamers will, I think, still find some solid advice herein. And if not, I promise to refund you the price of this column.)

I’m assuming that I don’t need to go into detail on some of the more obvious points: Things like “Don’t make use of game-specific terminology or copyrighted/trademarked terms.” And if I do have to go into that, well, I just did.

Del Rey author Elizabeth Moon is well acquainted with the topic of autism. She is the mother of an adult autistic son who has achieved much because of the unstinting effort and loving support Elizabeth and her husband provided as he grew. Michael currently attends community college, has held several part-time jobs, and has ambitions for his future.

Elizabeth put her understanding of autism into the novel The Speed of Dark (Del Rey, 2002), which received the Nebula Award for Best Novel and has gone on to be selected as a campus-wide read at a number of colleges. It is told from the point of view of a high-functioning young man who is offered the choice of an experimental surgery that could make him “normal.”

All of this is to introduce Elizabeth’s review of the film which airs tonight, February 6, on HBO: Temple Grandin. Read on, after the jump.

MY-HIME (Mai-HiME, “Dancing Girl/My Princess”) （舞-HiME) • Noboru Kimura (story), Sato Ken-etsu (art) • TokyoPop (2006-2008) • Akita Shoten (Weekly Shônen Champion, 2004-2005) • Shônen Sci-Fi Battle • 18+ (language, graphic violence, nudity, sexual situations)
Adaptation of the anime series. Yuuichi transfers to a special school where certain girls possess an awesome power: the ability to summon a “child,” a big mechanical monster, when in the presence of the right boy, called the “key.” Yuuichi turns out to be the “key” of not one but two hime girls, Mai and Natsuki, who bicker over him in endless superpowered catfights. Sloppily drawn and crammed with too many female characters to keep track of, My-Hime—hime is Japanese for “princess” but here stands for “Highly Advanced Materializing Equipment”—is a tedious manga adaptation of a cynical “high-concept” anime, mixing “harem” romantic comedies and battle manga about people who team up with mecha or monsters. Characters we don’t care about fight one another, make passes at Yuuichi and tear up the landscape, leading up to an incoherent climactic fight with the aliens from the “Princess Star” which is the origin of the himes. The books are padded out with interviews with the anime staff, one of whom tells the reader “Reading My-Hime isn’t enough, so go for the anime, the figures, and radio and become a My-Hime Ph.D!” The worst feature of the art is the slack-jawed inexpressive faces.

Today’s winner is Tracy C. of Illinois! If you’ve seen this review online before, that’s because it was already loaned out to Erica Friedman of the great manga site okazu.blogspot.com. Erica posted it as an example of one of the worst manga that I (or she) had ever read.

One of our previous winners, Jared B., sent in this photo of himself with the manga he won. Thanks for sending your photo, Jared! I’ll be sending you some more books right away!

Are you worried about post-Valentine’s day blues? Tired of the cold, gray winter? Well, Suvudu has the cure for you! On February 17 (at 4pm EST), we’re bringing in some of the hottest voices in Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy for a round-table discussion and we’re going to be bringing it live! Use the quick form above to sign-up for a one-time email reminder for the event, then sit back and prepare for the heat!

And who’s coming by? We’re so glad you asked! Check out this list of participants:

Kelley Armstrong

Kelley Armstrong is the New York Times bestselling author of the Women of the Otherworld series. She has been telling stories since before she could write. Her earliest written efforts were disastrous. If asked for a story about girls and dolls, hers would invariably feature undead girls and evil dolls, much to her teachers’ dismay. All efforts to make her produce “normal” stories failed. Today she continues to spin tales of ghosts and demons and werewolves while safely locked in her basement writing-dungeon.

Visit Kelley Online: KelleyArmstrong.com | @kelleyarmstrong on Twitter

Diana Rowland

Diana Rowland has lived her entire life below the Mason-Dixon Line. She has worked as a bartender, a blackjack dealer, a pit boss, a street cop, a detective, a computer forensics specialist, a crime-scene investigator, and a morgue assistant, which means that she’s seen more than her share of what humans can do to one another and themselves. She won the marksmanship award in her police academy class, earned a black belt in hapkido, has handled numerous dead bodies in various states of decomposition, and can’t Rollerblade to save her life. She lives with her husband and daughter in south Louisiana.

Visit Diana Online: DianaRowland.com | @dianarowland on Twitter

Jenna Black

Jenna Black is a typical writer, which means she’s an “experience junkie.” She received B.A. degrees in physical anthropology and French from Duke University. She once dreamed of being the next Jane Goodall, until she realized that primates spend 80 percent of their time not really doing anything. She moved on to such pastimes as grooming dogs and writing technical documentation before creating the Morgan Kingsley series: The Devil Inside, The Devil You Know, The Devil’s Due, Speak of the Devil, and now The Devil’s Playground. Jenna Black lives in Pittsboro, North Carolina.

Visit Jenna Online: JennaBlack.com | @JennaBlack on Twitter

Lucy A. Snyder

Lucy A. Snyder is the author of the story and poetry collections Sparks and Shadows and Chimeric Machines. She has a B.S. in biology and an M.A. in journalism and is a graduate of the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop. Born in South Carolina, she grew up in the cowboys-and-cactus part of Texas and currently lives in Worthington, Ohio.

Visit Lucy Online: LucySnyder.com | @LucyASnyder on Twitter

Carolyn Crane

Carolyn Crane lives in Minneapolis with her handsome husband and two daring cats. She enjoys reading and running and loves animals of all kinds. For more than a decade she’s made her living as a freelance writer. Mind Games is her first novel.

Visit Carolyn Online: AuthorCarolynCrane.com | @CarolynCrane on Twitter