Once, we lived and breathed in color. Now, thanks to the web, we live and breath in black and white
Image by Wikimedia Commons user Rock1997.
In “The Lost World” author Michael Crichton takes us on another hair-raising journey through The Land That Time Forgot Then Suddenly Remembered, a revisiting of “Jurassic Park.”
Almost worth the price of admission by itself, however, is Crichton’s indictment of the internet, which he lambasts as the final nail in the coffin of original thinking,
Crichton postulates the demise of our technical culture through an insidious process of intellectual homogenization cultivated by the ease and ubiquity of the Net. He borrows from genetics and chaos theory to describe a world bereft of the diversity and creativity necessary to give rise to new ideas. What television started, the Net will complete.
Grim stuff. Lucky for us Crichton writes fiction.
Or does he? Will his dystopian view of the future come to pass?
Sadly, the answer is yes. It is already happening. And forget the Arcanum of genetics and chaos theory. Much more accessible analogs exist: simple capitalism, for instance.
Give yourself this test. The next time you travel, stop at a shopping center and take an inventory of the stores. What do you see? The Gap. Payless Shoes. Morrow’s. Baskin-Robbins. Dominoes Pizza. Quincy’s Steakhouse. Levis.
Next, study the architecture of the buildings. Do you notice any particular style? Cape Cod? Plantation? Rust Belt Industrial? Anything at all you might call distinctive?
Listen closely to the voices of the people who are walking by you. Do you hear a preponderance of accents? Dialects? Colloquialisms?
Finally, is there anything about any of this that would give you a clue as to what part of the country you’re in?
Keep in mind you can order a Big Man in Freeport, Fla., or Freeport, the Bahamas. You can buy a pair of Nikes in Rome, Ga., or Rome, Italy. Blue jeans have currency in Moscow, Idaho, and Moscow, Russia.
The process of economic and cultural homogenization, facilitated by capitalism, is much nearer to completion there in the States than elsewhere. But it is happening all over the world, and soon, we will all be the same.
Which is not good.
It is differences that make us strong, our cultural, economic and intellectual diversities that compete and cross-pollinate and inspire and protect. These things need their own space to grow. Without them, the world becomes worse than monotonous. It becomes dangerous and evil, subject to an evolving tyranny of intellect, the same slow tyranny you see taking over the free market right now.
This Hitlerization of thinking is responsible for The Mass Mind, a pastiche of pop culture apocryphal stories, distorted history, and magical thinking. Doesn’t it scare you that people really, really believe in Roswell, New Mexico? Or that your children’s opinions lie in the capable hands of MTV? Wait until cyberspace becomes the dominant media form its practitioners say it will.
Forget this “global exchange of ideas” malarkey. That only describes the initial step in the transaction. Ultimately, the Net will weed out originality by encouraging whatever is popular or acceptable – insipid gruel for a world hungry for solutions.
Next week I’ll write about the antecedent to Crichton’s thesis of Net-leavened creativity: How the Net desocializes human interaction and ultimately cognition itself.
This column was originally published in the Wednesday, Oct. 23, 1996 edition of the Northwest Florida Daily News and is used with permission.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .
Image by Del Stone Jr.
Note: This was an essay I wrote that later became the basis of a short story, “Aunt Edna’s Cats,” which was published in the Barnes & Noble anthology “101 Crafty Cat Capers.”
—
As I stand in my kitchen, hands on hips, gazing across the 900-square-foot empire of my townhouse, I see things bumped out of place, the dust rings showing like chalk outlines of crime victims, proof I’ve murdered my life with the appearance of neatness.
I can’t believe I’m living like this — everything disorganized and messy and, as I said, out of place. I swore I’d never live like this. What’s going on?
It’s those cats.
—
I never liked cats. I was a dog man. My sisters were dog men. My parents, and their parents too, were dog men. We were all dog men, except my aunt, who had three or five or 40 cats.
She was the nutty aunt. The one with all the cats.
Now I have two cats. It was a calculated move, which acquits me of insanity charges. I live in a townhouse, alone, and I’m gone most of the day. A dog would become an ax murderer under those conditions, and a bird would drive its owner crazy with all its screeching and seed-flinging. And you can’t pick up a tropical fish and scratch it behind the ears — you could, I guess, but I defy you to enjoy the experience.
So I have cats. I don’t talk about them much. I intentionally don’t talk about them. I know pet stories are the equivalent of summer-vacation slides. And I know people wouldn’t believe me if I said I had two of the most amazing felines God ever let slip into an earthly state.
If I were anyone else, I wouldn’t believe me either.
—
My female cat’s name is Magpie. I call her Maggie. She’s an orange tabby Manx, and her most famous accomplishment is this: When she was spayed, she had the smallest ovaries of any cat the vet had ever seen.
The male is anthracite black. His name is Pavlov — Pav for short. He was put on this earth to teach me patience, and lately I only threaten to kill him two or three times a day. The trend is downward.
He waits for me at the door when I come home at night. Crazy cat.
—
Every moving thing is a game to cats, be it a catnip-laced flannel mouse dangling from an elastic string, or a human foot sliding beneath the covers. I discovered that early one morning as I awoke to the feel of Pav performing a biopsy on my big toe, his claws hooked knuckle-deep in my flesh and his ears laid back against his skull, his BB shot-sized brain rattling around in there like a pachinko machine down to its last marble.
Pav and Maggie have been excommunicated from the bedroom.
—
I won’t tell you the worm story. It’s too gross. But I noticed none of the presidential candidates was talking about pet health-care subsidies during the last election, which was smart because with the money I’ve spent on vet bills I could have bought myself one of those baboon heart-transplant operations.
For example: Maggie had worms, which she got from fleas. I hadn’t seen any fleas, but we had a “smoking gun,” or in this case a “smoking worm,” to prove they were there. The fleas had to go, which meant Bob the carpet guy had to come to clean the carpet before Charlie from the pest-control place could spray for fleas while the cats were at the vet being dipped and dewormed and inoculated.
So $175 later, I found a flea dying on the kitchen table.
Be still, my baboon heart.
—
Assuming I go straight home from work, a moment arrives between the time I open the front door and the time I close the bedroom door when the day unreels before me. Lightning does not strike, nor does the earth move, but I have my quiet celebrations of things done well, and my regrets for the mistakes I’ve made.
And always, no matter how wonderful or rotten I’ve been, I can lie on the couch and close my eyes and within moments feel the pressure of small paws on my chest, the spreading glow of a kitten lying down, the vibrating compression of a purr monster warming up.
It is love at its very best, for no reason other than its own, simple transcendence.
I am amazed.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .
[ Main image courtesy of SplitShire at Pexels by way of a Creative Commons license ]
The genesis of my story, “I Feel My Body Grow,” in “100 Wicked Little Witch Stories” was simple: I wanted to sell a story to “100 Wicked Little Witch Stories.”
During the ‘90s writer and editor Stefan Dziemianowicz edited a number of anthologies for Barnes & Noble, all of them centered around very short stories. Seems publishers love short shorts, and I’m not sure if that’s because they can get more in each books or that readers prefer very short stories. As a reader I have no druthers either way, though I will pause before committing to a novelette or novella. I didn’t read Stephen King’s “The Mist” for many years because of that bias.
When I heard Dziemianowicz was editing a book of witch stories I tried to come up with something that would fit his premise. I knew nothing about witches except what I’d seen in movies or TV. I knew a couple of people who claimed to be witches but their witchhood had less to do with eye of newt and hair of bat but the whole Mother Earth and Gaia thing, which I dismissed as a New Age hippie trend.
What I wanted was a witch for the modern ages, maybe not an evil witch but one who was vengeful. I came up with just such a creature:
Cancer.
Cancer is the modern scourge. We think of it as evil though it has no conscious intent – it merely is.
But I asked: What if it did have conscious intent?
“I Feel My Body Grow” is the answer.
This is a creepy story and when I re-read it recently I was gratified to see it holds up well, from 1995 to this writing in 2023. I think it would make a terrific feature in a horror anthology movie like “Tales from the Crypt” or “Twilight Zone.”
I don’t believe “I Feel My Body Grow” will leave you lying awake tonight jumping at every sound. I do hope it stays with you.
Oh, and one more thing. This story was converted into a vlog, which is posted on YouTube. Check it out! Witchy voice and all. Follow this link.
From Amazon
“I admit that when I bought this book, I didn’t have very high expectations for it. I mean, I’d never heard of it before, but I took a chance and bought it anyway. And I loved it. The stories are all so different; some were funny, others were dark and foreboding, and some were exciting.“
– Chayleen Anderson
The witches who populate these 100 delightfully scary stories include practitioners of white witchcraft and devotees of black magic. Most are female, some are male, and a few are thoroughly unclassifiable. They can be born witches or made witches, and may mix simple love potions or volatile concoctions that threaten all we hold dear. Some resent not receiving the treatment they feel they deserve from lesser mortals; yet other witches don’t even realize that they wield any special influence at all. The many writers who take on this ever-fascinating character (so fundamentally human unlike her more paranormal, ghostly brethren) include Juleen Brantingham (“Burning in the Light”), Joe R. Landsdale (“By the Hair of the Head”), Simon McCaffery (“Blood Mary”), Terry Campbell (“Retrocurses”), Lawrence Shimel (“Coming Out of the Broom Closet”), and a coven of others.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, Ello and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .
Maybe it was Capt. James Tiberius Kirk, commander of the starship Enterprise, who said: “Into each life a little raw sewage must fall.”
At least now I know Capt. Kirk’s middle name, thanks to the mobs who descended by telephone, mail or on foot to gleefully jab forefingers into my chest with that “How could you be such a moron” tone of jab and shout, “IT’S TIBERIUS!”
OK, OK. It’s Tiberius. You hear that, Charles? Charles left a message on my voice mail: “IT’S THADDEUS.” Thaddeus? No, Charles, you Treknophobe. IT’S TIBERIUS. Consider yourself poked in the chest. And Charlotte called to say she didn’t know squat about “Star Trek” but wanted to discuss it. Well, Charlotte, why don’t you let Charles fill you in on Capt. James Thaddeus Kirk, Dr. Spock, Mr. Checkout, Snotty the chief engineer, etc., etc.
Somebody else said, “It’s Tee.”
TEE?
You’re fired.
At this point you’re wondering, “What does Capt. Kirk’s middle name have to do with falling raw sewage?”
The connection is this: I was home, massaging forefinger stab wounds to my chest, when the upstairs toilet plugged up and overflowed onto the bathroom floor. I won’t go into details except to say it happened at the worst possible moment, and I was so stunned that for 10 seconds I simply stood there, my jaw unhinged, as this catastrophe unfolded before my disbelieving eyes.
Ten seconds. Then I stumbled into action, crashing downstairs for a bucket and sponge. When I returned, the mess had all but disappeared.
Where did it go?
IT WENT UNDER THE FLOORBOARDS, that’s where it went.
Because when I returned to the kitchen I could hear it spattering on the sheetrock, like thousands of tiny Esther Williams rats doing the breaststroke behind the walls, and I thought: Gosh, that could leak through into the kitchen.
Talk about self-fulfilling prophecy. Sewer water began dripping onto the counter, the Christmas presents, the telephone … INTO MY COFFEEMAKER!
I hurled stuff out of the way and hot-footed it to the damp telephone to call the plumber, who ran a snake through the pipes and told me plumbing horror stories (“Hey, you wouldn’t believe the stuff I’ve pulled out of these lines. Once, I found Jimmy Hoffa’s head!”).
Hours later, as I cleaned up the sewer spill, I heard a sound emanating from the hallway. It was the sound an inept home repair guy makes when he inserts a screwdriver into a wall outlet and discovers the full power of Mr. Ready Killowatt.
The circuit-breaker box was sizzling like a bag of microwave popcorn. Dad came over to check it for water leakage, but lucky, lucky me. It was an entirely unrelated problem that would necessitate all kinds of unrelated hassles.
About 7:30 that night I finished the cleanup. My joints ached and I was light-headed from breathing poisonous “fresh-scent” cleaner fumes. As I prepared to collapse onto the couch, I heard a sound: GLUK, GLUK, GLUK … GOOOOORK … GAAAAACK!
Oh, God.
The cat had tossed his kitty cookies in about eight different locations.
I looked heavenward and wondered how Capt. James Tiberius Kirk, orbiting way up there, would deal with these hassles. And then it hit me.
“Beam me up, Scotty.”
—
Cover image courtesy of Desilu Productions.
Author’s note: Contact me at [email protected]. To read more of my opinion and humor pieces, visit delstonejr.com . In addition to my humor columns and opinion pieces, I write fiction – horror, science fiction and contemporary fantasy. If you’re a fan of such genres please check out my Amazon author’s page. Print and e-books are both available, and remember: You don’t need a Kindle device to read a Kindle e-book. Simply download the free Kindle app for your smart phone or tablet.
Image courtesy of Flickr user Dennis Church by way of a Creative Commons license. https://www.flickr.com/photos/dfc_pcola/
When I want to experience nature in the flesh NATURE’S flesh, that is, not mine – I don’t hike in the woods. I go to the golf course.
Such was the case the other day when Scott, my golfing accomplice, descended on a local course for “a day at the links.” I say “accomplice” because Scott is one of the few people I can actually beat, provided we both cheat in a consistent manner. Once, Scott hit his ball in a sand trap and took so many strokes trying to get out that the course manager demanded he purchase drilling rights before continuing.
But enough of ridiculing Scott, who owns a 5-iron that would probably wrap nicely around my neck. On the day in question we approached the first tee with all the happy expectations of any golfer who has not actually struck a ball yet. There had been a terrible storm the night before. Trees were down all over the course. We dubbed it “Road Warrior Golf.”
Our playing partners, two guys “from Hurlburt” (I didn’t know if they were here for a little R&R after blowing up bridges in Iraq or bagging groceries at the commissary) told us there was a dead possum in the garbage can on the fourth hole.
Sure enough, when we reached the fourth hole there lay the possum, nestled amid the banana peels and Coke cans. I’d never seen a possum anywhere but beside a major highway, flattened to the thickness of a video rental card, so I was curious. … Actually, I was horrified, because Scott used his putter to poke the thing and it bared its fangs and hissed, which in possum means the same thing as rattlesnake, as in “Climb the nearest tree.”
Well, Scott turned over the garbage can and the possum trotted off in the direction of a nearby four-lane highway, where it was probably flattened by a truck.
Meanwhile, on the fairway we found another creature. Can you guess what it was? A rabbit nibbling on fresh grass blades? A goat? A herd of bison? Oh, you readers are so comically unimaginative. Of course, it was a FISH, dried to the hardness of a space shuttle re-entry tile. Apparently a nearby canal had flooded during the previous night’s storm and when the water retreated the fish was … well, ha ha, it was like a fish out of water!
But even that doesn’t compare to what awaited us on the next green. Let’s just say it was short and fat and had a forked tongue and two venom-filled teeth. No, you cynical readers, it wasn’t Roseanne Barr! It was a water moccasin. (To tell the truth, I don’t know the difference between a water moccasin and a plumber’s snake, but I do know one I’d pick up and the other I’d run over with a golf cart.)
This snake was major-league angry, possibly because I was clubbing it with my putter. When it tried to BITE my putter, I decided to “return to the game,” which in golf parlance means, “Leave the snake alone and putt out, since there are golfers backed up to the parking lot waiting for you to get out of the way so they can club the snake.”
So it was a “Wild Kingdom” kind of day at the golf course, and I’m trading in my spikes for hip-waders.
This column was originally published in the April 4, 1991 Northwest Florida Daily News and is used with permission.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, Ello and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .
Image courtesy of pxfuel.
Lately, torch-wielding mobs have been gathering at my front door, demanding to know what I want for Christmas this year.
These mobs are in luck, because after thinking about last year’s very sad Christmas, when I received mere thousands of dollars’ worth of costly and thoughtful gifts, I’ve decided to take the initiative and TELL potential gift-givers what I hope will turn up in my stocking Christmas morning.
Basically, I want a painting.
Not just ANY painting. I want a painting that will transcend the boundaries of convention, a painting that will be to the art world what Tammy Faye Bakker was to Revlon stockholders. I want The Great Emerald Coast Seascape, the kind you see at every local festival and crafts show.
The painting should be a beach scene. We live by the sea, so it’s only natural that I’d want to bring home a little piece of the beach with me and hang it on my wall, rather than tracking in little pieces of the beach all over the carpet, or finding little denizens of the beach writhing inside my swimsuit as I’m cruising at 60 mph down the highway.
But not just ANY beach scene. There should be sand dunes, of course. Huge, Mount Vesuvius-style sand dunes with flags from various nations protruding from the tops where mountain climbers from around the world have scaled these sand dunes and left their marks for the history books.
The sky should be covered with dark, roiling, angry clouds, in a weather pattern reminiscent of Moses parting the Red Sea.
This next part is VERY IMPORTANT. Partly buried in the lee of a sand dune should be a chest of gold doubloons and pearls. The artist could mount little blinking lights to make it seem as if the treasure is glittering.
This treasure is very important because in the background I want to see an intoxicated pirate staggering through the surf, his schooner aground on rocks, and I want a one-legged parrot – well, a peg-legged parrot – perched crookedly on the pirate’s shoulder, with little word balloons featuring parrot curses. This parrot should have its own miniature bottle of rum, and I want the parrot’s eyes to consist of blinking red Christmas tree lights, as if the parrot were suffering from the DTs.
Along the surf line I want the following items: a crab with blinking red lights for eyes, mounted on stalks that wiggle back and forth like antennae when you flick them; a real starfish glued to the canvas; Elvis in crushed velvet; a building permit and survey lines mounted on wooden stakes; the rotted stumps of a demolished pier; one of those knitted ducks that, when squeezed, poops jelly beans; and, lastly, a beach ball featuring the logos of every SEC football team.
This painting should be encased in lucite and mounted on a varnished cypress stump, with a clock and a CB radio in the base, and when you plug in the painting a computer chip should play “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”
You should be able to find one of these paintings at any local festival or art show. Prices are not reasonable, but it’s the thought that counts.
This column was previously published in the Nov. 15, 1990 Northwest Florida Daily News and is used with permission.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, Ello and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .
In this photo the author (left) greets a visitor to the Northwest Florida Daily News' booth at a local festival. As you can see, the author is overjoyed by the warm - make that cold - greeting the visitor had to offer, which probably resulted in even more gray hairs appearing in his head. Photo courtesy of the Northwest Florida Daily News
This morning I thought we would take an intimate look at eye crud, but a vastly more important issue has since arisen: Apparently I’ve reached that point in life when, in order to continue looking young, I must give Mother Nature a gentle, helping hand, in the form of bleach and plastic surgery. Either that or buy an expensive sports car.
The sports car is out, as might be the chemicals, depending on how much I’ve got in my wallet and whether anybody in town has beer on sale. But the short of it is: I’m thinking of dying my hair.
Right now you are laughing and saying to yourself, “If this guy is serious about looking better, he should consider demonic possession.” Well, you just go ahead and laugh. When I’m hired to be Rob Lowe’s stuntman in all those steamy movie sex scenes, we’ll see who’s stampeding down to the drugstore to snarf up the Lady Clairol.
The decision to dye my hair was prompted by a serious error in judgment: I looked at my hair in the mirror. What I saw were these moss-like streaks of gray – on the left half of my head. The right side was almost moss-free. It was as if I’d decided to become a punk rocker, then halfway through the process changed my mind.
(Now I want a new) color, which won’t be the first time I’ve humiliated myself in this manner. The first occurred several years ago, when I thought it would be neat to use sun lightener to bring out the true bleached blond in me. Unfortunately, instead of becoming a sun-drenched blond color, my hair turned ORANGE, and to put it politely, my new look became a sure conversation-stopper.
I’m not contemplating anything so radical this time. Just a simple elimination of the gray, maybe a lighter shade of brown, possibly blue eyes and a pouty mouth and muscles like that guy on the Soloflex commercials. OK, OK, so we’ve strayed into the realm of fantasy here.
I’m making a federal case out of this because I don’t want to walk into the newsroom and have everybody stare at me as if I’d just stepped off a UFO and was demanding to meet Elvis.
When it comes to dying hair, society has a double standard. It’s OK for a woman to be blond one day and a redhead the next, but if a man does that, people automatically assume (a) he’s suffering from a glandular disorder, (b) he’s taking part in the federal witness protection program or (c) he’s going through male menopause.
Women might say they’re the victims of a double standard too, because society disdains gray-haired women while gray-haired men are said to look “distinguished.” That may be true, but if I look “distinguished” at age 33, at 43 I’ll look “withered,” and at 53 I’ll look “dead.”
But this won’t be a “do-it-yourself” project. I learned from caulking the bathtub that “do-it-yourself” is a synonym for “lower-your-standard-of-living,” and I refuse to look like I was attacked by bleach-wielding terrorists. So I’ll call in the Hair Color Rapid Deployment Force for a surgical strike on those gray interlopers.
And I’ll tell Rob Lowe you said hello.
This column was published in the Northwest Florida Daily News in 1989 and is used with permission.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .
Image courtesy of MGM/UA.
“Pumpkinhead” Starring Lance Henriksen, Jeff East, John D’Aquino and Florence Shauffler. Directed by Stan Winston. 86 minutes. Rated R. Amazon Prime.
Del’s take
They had me at the cicadas.
If I remember the South for anything it will be sluggish July afternoons, when the chore of taking a breath is like sucking a wad of steamed broccoli into your lungs, as cicadas hidden within the needles of longleaf pines screech and screech and screech screech screech. According to folklore the infernal bugs “hibernate” underground for 17 years until one night they awaken to scale a nearby slash pine – yes, it’s always at night – squeeze from their shell, pump up their wings and fly away to enjoy a brief yet incandescent third act of noisy fornication.
That rhythmic screeching, like chalk chalk chalk on a blackboard, is stamped onto my brain. So, when I heard it used as an audio effect in “Pumpkinhead” I knew the story was taking place somewhere below the Mason-Dixon, where the ever-increasing heat has baked the brains out of everybody who lives there, transforming them into Trump supporters.
The horror.
I didn’t let that stop me from enjoying “Pumpkinhead’s” other charms. The movie, which was released way back in 1989, has become a cult favorite despite early panned reviews. The directorial debut of special effects wizard Stan Winston, “Pumpkinhead” inspired a straight-to-video sequel, two made-for-TV sequels, a comic book from Dark Horse and even a video game.
Plus, it stars one of my favorite underrated actors, Lance Henriksen, who appeared in several James Cameron movies along with Bill Paxton and Jeanette Goldstein. He brings just the right touch of doom to his role as grieving father Ed, who sets off the horrific chain of events in “Pumpkinhead.”
The story goes like this: As a young boy, Ed witnessed a man being killed by a monster and knows that with the help of the right people, he can summon a demon to avenge the death of his young son Billy, who was accidentally run over by a dirt bike rider who had come to the back woods with his friends to party.
With the guidance of Haggis (Florence Shauffler), a crone who lives in the deep woods, Ed summons the Pumpkinhead demon and sets it loose on the teens, choosing to disregard her warning that Pumpkinhead is as dangerous to those who evoke its presence as those intended to receive its wrath.
The result is well-choreographed and photographed slaughter that follows a predictable path with only a slight deviation there at the end. Lessons will be taught and for some, learned, while for others there may be no moral to this story.
“Pumpkinhead” is one of those fun B movies that works if you can get past the threadbare writing and horror movie clichés. It calls forth an eerily gothic atmosphere you have never seen from Henry James or even V.C. Andrews. Henriksen delivers his patented emotionally wounded performance – you can’t help but sympathize with the guy, even if events leading up to his actions follow a corny, well trodden horror movie trail.
The real star here is the Pumpkinhead demon, which I thought worked very, very well. It’s a movie monster you haven’t seen before and in ways reminded me of the atavistic horror of “Alien.” It produces a similar quality of dread, even if the cornpone story doesn’t.
“Pumpkinhead” has lots of gross and gore, which should forestall whiny lectures from Mladen about R ratings and blood spatter. It’s a necessity for any serious horror movie collector or fan. Watch it in 2021 about mid-October, after the real horror of 2020 has mostly faded from memory.
I give it a B.
Mladen’s take
Del and I have been friends for a long time. And, still, he’s simply unable to judge the depth and breadth of my intolerance for inadequate moviedom mayhem, violence, and cussing.
“Pumpkinhead” is a good movie. I throw it an A- for the superb creature effects, which offset the movie’s quasi-“Deliverance” vibe. However, there are no dismemberments or intestines spilling from sliced abdomens. Shoot, plenty of blood is spilled, but no depictions of arterial pulse squirting. Sure as hell there is very little swearing, if any, that I recall and there is definitely no damned nudity. So, forgive me Del, but I’m whining, anyway, though, really, it’s closer to satisfied grumbling because the “Pumpkinhead” plot is solid.
In fact, I had little trouble overlooking the plot’s trigger, a grieving father mischaracterizing the city slickers’ accidental mistreatment of his geeky son. What unfolds is horror movie commentary on the ruin that engulfs those seeking revenge. For, you see, Ed the father becomes entwined with the monster he unleashes. When Pumpkinhead kills, Ed feels it.
—
Quick, what excellent recent movie uses the same type of symbiotic relationship between man and beast as an integral part of the story? Answer: “Sputnik.”
—
It’s Pumpkinhead who has me enamored by this late 1980s film. This is a lovingly, carefully, patiently, and nicely crafted terror animal. The only non-practical, i.e. without makeup, and non-mechanical visual effect in the movie is blurred and swaying filmography showing Ed sensing that Pumpkinhead is about to strike.
Pumpkinhead, by the way, is a tall guy in a costume. The creature is a decaying pink and skeletal. It has no hair, a tail, claws for hands, pseudo-hooves for feet, and long bony protrusions from the shoulders. Its legs at the knees bend like a heron’s, forward, if I recall accurately. Its teeth are long, crooked, and cracked and eyes white, opaque, and all-seeing. Pumpkinhead is a conjured beast, maybe risen from the fires of hell, making a living in the material world. Pay attention to the shrunken monster’s face when it’s re-buried.
Pumpkinhead’s interaction with reality as we understand it is very nicely executed in its namesake film.
There’s our nightmare walking past a window as though taking a leisurely stroll while the kid killers inside the cottage talk about what to do. When Pumpkinhead prowls through the house, it ducks beneath doorways. It swivels and tilts its head to listen. And, Pumpkinhead has no trouble looking straight at you while contemplating, I imagine, what to do next. It kills your ass and then hangs around for a moment to watch the reaction of your friends. There are no rampages. Just a methodical hunt to pick off the offending, big-hair youths. Wait till you see how the monster decides to handle a rifle. Pumpkinhead is scary as hell because it’s very human.
To me, Pumpkinhead has a subtler charisma than the Xenomorph in “Alien,” more natural finesse than the Predator in “Predator,” and a finer malevolence than Freddy in “A Nightmare on Elm Street.”
It’s my hope that no dumbass 21st century producer decides to re-make “Pumpkinhead.” This is a story and a monster that stand on their own. The beast borne of revenge shouldn’t be risked by a crappy re-do.
Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical editor. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and author.
Image courtesy of Quinn Dombrowski by way of a Creative Commons license. https://www.flickr.com/photos/quinnanya/
As a homeowner, I have had my eyes opened to a range of marvelous new experiences, many of them requiring the absence of money. One such experience is a clogged drain.
In the halcyon days of my youth, a clogged drain meant waiting until 2:30 when Dad would come home from work to fix it. Now, a clogged drain means that I, as an adult male and, by default, the head of the household, am expected to flail at the accursed thing for at least an hour before calling Dad, who must come home from work and then drive across town to my house to fix it.
I was taking a shower recently when I noticed that my kneecaps were submerged. My keen powers of perception told me that water was not draining from the bathtub, and with my equally acute powers of deductive reasoning, I swiftly determined that something – probably a big wad of mutant hairballs – had plugged the drain.
Minutes later I entered the bathroom dressed for battle: a plumber’s snake dangled from my fist like a bullwhip. The furrows in my forehead, plowed there by grim determination, were dotted with beads of sweat, or perhaps bath water, because I had forgotten to towel off.
You are probably asking yourself: What is a plumber’s snake? Is it one of those things you read about that swims up into toilets and gives elderly ladies heart attacks?
No. Basically, a plumber’s snake is a long metal device that you use to damage shower tiles and small children if they happen to be in the same voting precinct when you are cranking it.
I began ramming the snake down the drain. I immediately encountered an obstruction, because the snake kept wanting to spring back out of the drain as if it were some mad jack-in-the-box. The obstruction turned out to be a bend in the pipe.
More of the snake began to slip into the drain. I could hear it clearly … so clearly that my powerful intellect was able to guide me to the conclusion that it had gone UP the pipe instead of DOWN, and would have inserted itself into my ear had it not been for a metal plate covering the opening beneath the faucet.
I reasoned that if I could remove that metal plate, I could force the snake DOWN, and it could go nowhere but into the drain pipe, unless it bored through the pipe and into Earth’s crust.
So I set about unscrewing the screw that held the plate in place. I did not know the screw hadn’t been moved since man developed metallurgy, and no sooner than I could say, “What hath God wrought,” the screw broke, the plate fell off and I was staring at a slime-encrusted hole that resembled a biblical description of hell.
Ever the opportunist, I inserted the plumber’s snake into the hole and began merrily plunging away, and half an hour later I had slime all over the bathroom, the drain was plugged worse than ever and it was almost time to go to work.
That’s when I called Dad.
I’m happy to report the drain is now clear and the lid to hell has been capped and you can all return to your homes. Except the kitchen faucet is dripping.
This column was originally published in a February 1988 edition of the Northwest Florida Daily News and is used with permission.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, Ello and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .
Who knew I had such deep thoughts?
Filmmakers would have you believe every hour of every day is fraught with adventure. The typical cinematic day begins with an illicit love affair followed by a mysterious telephone call, a car chase and a narrowly thwarted assassination attempt.
But life rarely imitates art. This occurred to me recently as I was standing in an office supply store. The clerk had just told me IBM manufactures a ribbon cassette that is compatible with my Royal typewriter. That made me happy – inordinately happy. And I didn’t know why.
After all, small success stories such as these are not the stuff of which entertainment is made. Had I not been taught by 25 years of watching television and movies that a person could not be truly happy unless he were realizing his most extravagant dreams?
It had been a good day, so far, and as I went over the events that had made it that kind of day, I began to remember something many of us often forget under the barrage of video and celluloid fantasies.
That morning, I finally discovered a place where our writers’ group could meet. I belong to the Redneck Riviera Writers Group. We get together twice a month and compare notes on the business of writing. We had been meeting at people’s homes, or local eateries, but it soon became obvious that if we were to expand beyond our current membership of five people, we would have to find a permanent meeting place. After a fruitless search, we found a new home at the YMCA, courtesy of Joe Lukaszewski. That made me feel good.
Something else nice happened that morning. I found a book of Ramsey Campbell short stories I hadn’t known existed. I’m a student of the short story and Campbell is a bona fide master. The book should be fascinating.
I also picked up what I think will be the perfect gift for a friend. It, too, is a book of short stories, but these are special. I had never seen the book outside of the one copy I’d been hoarding for myself. Now she can enjoy it too.
Pop artist Andy Warhol died recently. In one of his obituaries I came across a reference to a movie of his titled “Sleep.” The movie depicted a person sleeping. That’s it. Two hours of a person sleeping. The entertainment virtues of the film are less than dubious and the artistic virtues debatable, but I think I understand what Warhol might have been saying.
The small, mundane successes and failures – things that would end up on the cutting room floor – are the body and texture of life. They are what make life an endlessly fascinating experience. Spilling coffee on the living room carpet. Finding a letter from a friend in your mailbox. The thousand things that you forget a day after they’ve happened. They are what get us through accomplishments to crises.
So it was a pretty good day. Not great, but not horrible. Just something to be thankful for.
This column was published in the Sunday, January 10, 1988 edition of the Northwest Florida Daily News and is used with permission.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .