Risingshadow
Speculative Fiction Books
  • About
    • Home
    • Articles
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Service
    • Staff Members
    • Newsletter
    • Finnish (FI)
  • Books
    • New Releases
    • Coming Soon
    • Books of the Year
    • Bookshelves Activity
    • Recently Added
    • Advanced Search
    • Reviews / Comments
    • Genres and Tags
    • * Submit Book
  • Community
    • Discussions
    • - Recent Messages
    • - Recent Topics
    • - Hot Topics
    • - Popular Topics
    • - Search
    • CHALLENGES
    • - Reading Challenge
    • - Book Trivia Quiz
  • Home
  • Books
  • David Herter
  • Earthling Halloween Series
  • October Dark

October Dark

Earthling Halloween Series #5 / 16 ✓
by David Herter
October Dark (Earthling Halloween Series #5) by David Herter
Unrated

Introduction by Jeffrey Ford.

From acclaimed author David Herter, a new novel in the tradition of Ray Bradbury's SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES and Tim Powers's  LAST CALL...

Halloween, 1931.  The metropolis of Grenton. On the ruined canals, a clock tolls midnight. Willis H. O’Brien, the father of stop motion animation, seeks the base elements of a new animation. And Henri Mordaunt, the undying Phantasmagoria magician, will soon provide them. An uncanny bargain is struck, leading to betrayal and dire retribution, and an act of cinematic alchemy that echoes down the history of fantastic film.

Halloween, 1977. For thirteen-year-old Will and his best friend Jim — amateur animators and Famous Monsters of Filmland fanatics — summer darkens into mysterious autumn, with a black balloon prowling the skies of their suburban neighborhood, and supernatural images haunting the frames of their latest 8 mm epic, heralding doom.  Everything leads to the edge of Grenton’s ruined canals, and the faded cinema palace where STAR WARS has been showing non-stop since late May, a gateway into the mysteries of Grenton’s past, and to a secret history playing out on either side of the silver screen...

Amazon: Check Best Offer

Horror
Release date: October 2009

Book Order
Amazon
Kindle
Audible
Amazon CA
Amazon UK
Amazon Europe

Your Rating
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
Standard Shelves

Readers also enjoyed

Tales Nocturnal
★ 10.00 / 10
Dreamsongs: A RRetrospective
★ 8.84 / 12
The Black Phone and Other Stories: 20th Century Ghosts
★ 8.64 / 14
Night Shift
★ 8.56 / 18
Fevre Dream
★ 8.46 / 20
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
★ 8.40 / 15
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
★ 8.34 / 12

Join the Discussion
You can post as a guest or sign in for more features.
Have questions about this book or want to share your thoughts? Join the conversation!

David Herter

David Herter is an American author. Herter lives in Seattle, Washington.

His first novel was Ceres Storm in 2000, which was chosen as one of the top 10 science fiction books of 2000 by Amazon.com, followed by Evening's Empire in 2002.

On the Overgrown Path, a novella about the Czech composer Leoš Janá?ek, was published in 2006 by P.S. Publishing, with an introduction by John Clute; a sequel, The Luminous Depths, featuring the writer Karel ?apek and the composer Pavel Haas, with an introduction by Stephen Baxter, was released in 2008. One Who Disappeared completes the trilogy.

Read more ...

October Dark, a fantasy novel set in the summer and autumn of 1977. October Dark is a fantasia on Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes, and tells a secret history of the fantastic film, centering on special-effects wizard Willis O'Brien's 1931 encounter with a magician whose career stretches back to the birth of the phantasmagoria in Post-Revolutionary France. It was published by Earthling Publications as a part of their Halloween Series.

Earthling Halloween Series

From the website of Earthling Publications:

Boo.

This series of books celebrates Publisher Paul Miller's favorite holiday. Each October, as the air turns colder and leaves fall off the trees, Earthling will release one novel of flat-out horror, usually featuring classic terrors such as monsters and haunted houses rather than psychological suspense or real-life horrors. The dustjacket spine will feature a pumpkin with the series number of the book. MR. DARK'S CARNIVAL was an ultra-short run of only 15 handmade hardcovers, and therefore BLOOD RED was counted as Book #1 in the series.

Read more ...

The perfect way to get into the Halloween spirit!

Titles in the Earthling Halloween Series

#0: Mr. Dark's Carnival by Glen Hirshberg
#1: Blood Red by James A. Moore
#2: The Unblemished by Conrad Williams
#3: The Haunted Forest Tour by James A. Moore and Jeff Strand
#4: Moontown by Peter Atkins
#5: October Dark by David Herter
#6: By Wizard Oak by Peter Crowther
#7: Blood Harvest by James A. Moore
#8: Motherless Child by Glen Hirshberg
#9: The Bones of You by Gary McMahon
#10: The Halloween Children by Brian James Freeman and Norman Prentiss
#11: Rage Master by Simon Clark
#12: They Say a Girl Died Here Once by Sarah Pinborough
#13: Goblin by Josh Malerman
#14: Bloodlines by James A. Moore
#15: One Who Was with Me by Conrad Williams
#16: The Boys in the Valley by Philip Fracassi


Earthling Halloween Series consists of sixteen primary books, and includes one additional book that complement the series but is not considered mandatory reads — considered a complete series. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.

Blood Red (Earthling Halloween Series #1)
Unrated
The Unblemished (Earthling Halloween Series #2)
Unrated
The Haunted Forest Tour (Earthling Halloween Series #3)
Unrated
Moontown (Earthling Halloween Series #4)
Unrated
October Dark (Earthling Halloween Series #5)
Unrated
By Wizard Oak (Earthling Halloween Series #6)
Unrated
Blood Harvest (Earthling Halloween Series #7)
Unrated
Motherless Child (Earthling Halloween Series #8)
Unrated
The Bones of You (Earthling Halloween Series #9)
Unrated
The Halloween Children (Earthling Halloween Series #10)
Unrated
Rage Master (Earthling Halloween Series #11)
Unrated
They Say a Girl Died Here Once (Earthling Halloween Series #12)
Unrated
Goblin (Earthling Halloween Series #13)
Unrated
Bloodlines (Earthling Halloween Series #14)
Unrated
One Who Was with Me (Earthling Halloween Series #15)
Unrated
Boys in the Valley (Earthling Halloween Series #16)
⧗ 8.00 / 1
Mr. Dark's Carnival (Earthling Halloween Series)
Unrated


^ Top
Follow Us: Newsletter | Facebook | X | Mastodon | RSS
Hosted by Planeetta Internet Oy
© 1996 - 2026 Risingshadow. All rights reserved.
This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website.
Privacy Policy