Stoked
Today wasn't supposed to be a good day. See, as I write this, I'm home sick from the day job. That flu that's been going around? HOLY HELL I HAZ IT. Been laid up for going on a week. But once the morning's NyQuil-haze abated, and I fired up the ol' computer over my morning cup of cough-medicine, my whole day changed. DEAD HARVEST made the preliminary ballot for a Best First Novel Stoker. When I was a kid, I read a ton of Stephen King. But once I burned through his whole back catalog, I needed fresh blood to quench my thirst. King, you may recall, won the first ever Stoker for Best Novel back in '87 (in a tie, says Wikipedia, with Robert R. McCammon), which is what sparked me to mine their nominations to stock my to-be-read pile. And with past nominees like Koontz, Powers, Straub, Gaiman, Rice, Harris, Bradbury, Carr, Ketchum, and Oates (just to name a few), they've never steered me wrong. The fact that I might one day be in the running for a Stoker n...