I apologise for not posting the last two weeks. I was busy getting an early start on celebrating Halloween--Southern California style. Well, in a sense. The amusement parks like Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm celebrate the holiday early due to the tourists who come from all over the world. So Disneyland, Disney California Adventure and Knott’s—all parks that I visited with family from Fresno last week—were set up for Halloween with Jack-o-lanterns and skeletons depicting the parks’ characters. And of course, the major attraction at Disneyland this time of year is the Haunted Mansion, seasonally renamed the Haunted Holiday Mansion and so includes characters from The Nightmare Before Christmas. I prefer the year-round version of this dark ride that’s always been a favourite of mine. It’s scarier whereas the one during the Halloween season tends to be a bit too comical, even if in a dark sense, because of the nature of Tim Burton’s Nightmare characters.Even so, I’m still fascinated by the holiday version. I tried riding it a second time but it is so popular during this time of year that the later it gets in the day the longer the lines get. It was about a 20 to 30 minute wait when I went on it the first time but as it got closer to evening the wait was 45 to 75 minutes! There were too many other neat rides to go on besides just that, so as long as I rode it once I was okay with it.

The opportunity to learn more about the ride was not all lost, however. I bought as a souvinir The Haunted Mansion: Imagineering a Disney Classic. This book tells the entire history of Disney’s haunted house ride and all its incarnations at the other Disney parks around the world. Plus, it has photos of the attraction and of concept sketches used in the designing of it and it discusses Walt Disney’s inspiration for creating the ride. I haven’t finished reading the book yet but, of what I’ve read so far, it’s very intriguing and I recommend it for all Haunted Mansion and dark ride fans.

Today at a Friends of the Library book sale, I found two more books just in time for the Halloween season. One was a copy of Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (that also includes some of his other stories). The other: a copy of the Necronomicon. This latter is not so much a story than a book of spells said to be dangerous if used. How true that is, I don’t know. But, personally, I wouldn’t try practicing them to find out. However, this book has interested me for a long time because it was the book that influenced H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. Yet, the strange thing is that it’s been said Lovecraft did not believe the book ever existed. I’ve been trying to get a hold of a copy of the Necronomicon since a year ago when I started reading a history of it called Dead Names, written by the editor of the former who only goes by the name of Simon. I’ll try to do a review of Dead Names here before Halloween.

For the past several weeks I’ve been working on self-publishing a Halloween horror book. It will consist of two YA/tween stories. So I’ve been keeping really busy putting that together so I can get it out before the 31^stof the month. As much as I prefer print, the book will only be available in ebook format for the time being. I admit that I didn’t start planning it until only the end of last month and so I won’t have time to get it into print before Halloween. I apologise for my hypocrisy to my fellow lovers of print books. But I will come out with a print edition eventually. Keep tuning in here and at my Facebook page for the latest updates and how you might be able to get a free copy!

Yesterday I saw The House With a Clock In Its Walls, the movie adaptation of John Bellairs’ juvenile book of the same name. I was going to have a “Book To Movie” review of it here for you today but got too late of a start in the day. So I’ll have it here next week. But I’ll leave you with this much about the movie: it was terror-ific but it doesn’t beat the book!

Do you have any plans for this Halloween season? Do you plan on reading or seeing any books or movies in light (or dark) of the holiday? Feel free to leave your replies in the box below.

Until next time . . .