| Hello, Leaguers! Kelly Meding's debut urban fantasy, THREE DAYS TO DEAD, will be released in Fall 2009, from Bantam Spectra. Today at the League, she's exploring the question on everyone's mind: Where do ghosts go to party? ------------------------ I'm very excited to do my first guest blog here at the League. They're a great bunch of peeps, and Halloween is the perfect time of year for those of us who write in the paranormal genre. My day job is in a corporate retail store, and every two months or so they send us a new music compilation to play. This month's had five Halloween-themed songs mixed in with standard "popular" music, and one of the songs is "Grim Grinning Ghosts" by Barenaked Ladies. The theme behind it always sounded familiar (and frankly, it took me until Googling for this post to realize it was from a Disney theme park ride), but the basic chorus ("Grim grinning ghosts come out to socialize") keeps getting stuck in my head. Very stuck. Like songs from the Broadway show "Rent" usually get stuck, and it's sort of annoying. Apart from "grim grinning," I keep pondering the part of where these ghosts might actually socialize. Sure, if you keep with the theme of the Disney ride, it's a Haunted Mansion. Or a graveyard. But that's sort of cliché. If you're looking for a ghost, you're either going to look in a haunted house or a graveyard. Duh. But where might a lonely ghost go to socialize? A bar? A ballroom dance hall? A rugby game? A hospital emergency room? And with whom is s/he socializing? Other ghosts? Living people? Vampires? Demons? Angels? All of the above? Ghosts are often portrayed as either vengeful spirits (the film The Ring, for example), or bumbling apparitions that really can't affect anything without help from the living and are stuck (Jeaniene Frost's Night Huntress series). There are fewer examples where ghosts are leading characters (Casper), or have more of an ability to affect things (Ghost) around them. One of my personal works-in-progress deals with ghosts, which means I'm thinking about this more and more as I sketch out the world in which it takes place. So here's where I ask for recommendations. What are some of your favorite books that feature ghosts? Either as lead characters, or as important secondary characters? Where are the gems I've missed among all of the fangs, fur and fey stories? In addition to a $10 Barnes & Noble gift card, and in keeping with the Halloween theme, Im including a copy of the horror anthology "Dark Delicacies," edited by Del Howison and Jeff Gelb, with stories by Clive Barker, Nancy Holder, Ray Bradbury, and more. Leave a comment to win. We'll announce the winner on Friday, so be sure to check back often to see if you've won. |
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The only book I can think of right now is A Christmas Carol by Dickens.
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman... though the ghosts do stick to the graveyard except for one special night (not-Halloween).
The Remember Me series by Christopher Pike. It's young adult and my copies are so old they're falling apart, but they remain one of my favorite series ever.
I always liked Kendrick in Stardust of Yesterday by Lynn Kurland.
Bob from The Dresden Files
PI Jack Shepard from the Haunted Bookshop series by Alice Kimberly.
There were a number of great ghosts in the Harry Potter books/movies - Nearly Headless Nick and Moaning Myrtle.
I know there are more. I just can't think of them right now.
Strout, Dead to Me.
I have to say Robert Service's Sam McGee is the best ghost story.
Here's an interesting story about the real Sam McGee
http://www.uphere.ca/node/60
And oddly enough my cousin knows all of these Poems by Service by heart. lol
****
The Cremation of Sam Mcgee
Robert W. Service
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold,
And the Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold.
The northern lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was the night on the marge of Lake LaBarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
Now, Sam McGee was from Tennessee
Where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the south to roam
'Round the pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold
Seemed to hold him like a spell,
Though he'd often say, in his homely way,
He'd sooner live in hell.
On a Christmas day we were mushing our way
Over the Dawson Trail.
Talk of your cold--through the parka's fold
It stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze
'Till sometimes we couldn't see.
It wasn't much fun, but the only one
To whimper was Sam McGee.
And that very night as we lay packed tight
In our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead
Were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and "Cap", says he,
"I'll cash in this trip, I guess,
And if I do, I'm asking that you
Won't refuse my last request."
Well, he seemed so low I couldn't say no,
And he says with a sort of moan,
"It's the cursed cold, and it's got right hold
'Till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet 'ta'int being dead, it's my awful dread
Of the icy grave that pains,
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair,
You'll cremate my last remains."
A pal's last need is a thing to heed,
And I swore that I would not fail.
We started on at the streak of dawn,
But, God, he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day
Of his home in Tennessee,
And before nightfall, a corpse was all
That was left of Sam McGee.
There wasn't a breath in that land of death
As I hurried, horror driven,
With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid
Because of a promise given.
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say,
"You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it's up to you
To cremate those last remains."
Now, a promise made is a debt unpaid,
And the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, 'though my lips were dumb,
In my heart, how I cursed the load.
In the long, long night by the lone firelight
While the huskies 'round in a ring
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows
Oh, God, how I loathed the thing.
And every day that quiet clay
Seemed to heavy and heavier grow.
And on I went, though the dogs were spent
And the grub was getting low.
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad,
But I swore I would not give in,
And often I'd sing to the hateful thing,
And it hearkened with a grin.
'Till I came to the marge of Lake LaBarge,
And a derelict there lay.
It was jammed in the ice, and I saw in a trice
It was called the "Alice May".
I looked at it, and I thought a bit,
And I looked at my frozen chum,
Then, "Here", said I, with a sudden cry,
"Is my crematorium."
Some planks I tore from the cabin floor
And lit the boiler fire.
Some coal I found that was lying around
And heaped the fuel higher.
The flames just soared, and the furnace roared,
Such a blaze you seldom see.
Then I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal
And I stuffed in Sam McGee.
Then I made a hike, for I didn't like
To hear him sizzle so.
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled,
And the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled
Down my cheek, and I don't know why,
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak
Went streaking down the sky.
I do not know how long in the snow
I wrestled with gristly fear.
But the stars came out, and they danced about
'Ere again I ventured near.
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said,
"I'll just take a peek inside.
I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked",
And the door I opened wide.
And there sat Sam, looking calm and cool
In the heart of the furnace roar.
He wore a smile you could see a mile,
And he said, "Please close that door.
It's fine in here, but I greatly fear
You'll let in the cold and storm.
Since I left Plumbtree down in Tennessee
It's the first time I've been warm."
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold,
And the Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold.
The northern lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was the night on the marge of Lake LaBarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
The Graveyard Book, Haunted Lily, Haunted, A Christmas Carol, the Haunted Bookshop Mystery series, The Ghost Hunter Mysteries series,
The Pepper Martin Mysteries series.
I know there are more but thats all I can think of right now. Spent most of October trying to find good books about ghosts.
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman...loved it!
Also, Into Thin Air by Cindy Miles. It's a paranormal romance and has lots of ghosts!
Hrm... Ghost books:
Dead To Me - Anton Strout
Grave Peril - Jim Butcher
Hamlet - Shakespeare
A Christmas Carol - Dickens
I know there are some other modern UF books that are ghost based but I can't remember....le sheesh.
~J
Wow, rachel, thanks for that poem. Very cool!
It sounds like I'll have to pick up The Graveyard Book, with so many recs.
And I can't believe I didn't think of Bob, from the Dresden books. I'm reading "Storm Front" right now!
Barbara Michaels, who is my favorite author (and also writes as Elizabeth Peters) writes suspense stories with a sort of "are they or aren't they" ghostly element. Two of my favorites are Ammie Come Home and The Walker in Shadows. I also like the ghosts in Karen Chance's Touch the Dark, and Kelley Armstrong's Haunted and No Humans Involved.
Gotta get that Neil Gaiman book!
Undead and UnEasy by MJ Davidson
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
is on my tbr pile.
I can think of one, but it hasn't been released yet.
But Dead to Me works as well
Johnny Thunders from the New York Dolls, who appears as a ghost in The Good Fairies of New York
Am I allowed to say The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, though it's been said?
I'm reading Kelley Armstrong's Living With the Dead right now and it has ghosts in it. I highly recommend it too.
Road Trip of the Living Dead by Mark Henry.
(it's never too early to start the promo)
hmm...that was me. what's up with the log in today? - T.M. Thomas
Thanks for all the great suggestions, folks!
Dead to Me! :D I haven't read many other books with ghosts. Although it's a little early for me, maybe I'll think of more later.